Working in a township is a challenging but also rewarding way of living. In this dissertation the researcher, in collaboration with the co-searchers, explore ways to mentor one another as they learn how to deal with trauma, either by experiencing trauma directly or witnessing secondary trauma. This leads to new ways of being 'in the moment', coping with trauma, forming a community of care and learning to be in an aware and empowered position. The responsibility of practical theology and the commitment to pastoral care are explored in the context of theology, and spesifically feminist theology, contributing to 'do hope' in Mamelodi. / Philosophy, Practical & Systematic Theology / M.Th. (Pastoral Therapy)

The study describes the counselling journey undertaken with 270 patients at the Family Medicine Clinic at Kalafong Hospital in Atteridgeville, Tshwane, between June 2000 and December 2003. Of these patients 75% were women, 74% were black and 97% Christian, with half of them belonging to born-again churches. A majority of the patients (52%) were unemployed and the others employed in minimum salary jobs. A third of the patients had attemped suicide at least once before, and a third had lost at least one close family member. With these patients a narrative pastoral counselling practice was established. Narrative counselling was practised as a MEET process in which the patients' problem-saturated stories were mapped and their problems externalised; they were empowered through the deconstruction of religious problem discourses, and their alternative stories were thickened by means of religious practices. This was a pastoral practice with a focus on religious discourses as problem discourses, and on the deconstruction of these discourses towards alternatives stories of faith. The first aim of the study was to describe the faces of religious problem discourses. They are (1) power discourses that hold patients captive in divinely sanctions hierarchies of gender and class, (2) body discourses that alienated patients from their bodies, (3) identity discourses that placed the religious identities of patients in conflict with their other identities, and (4) otherness discourses that created barriers between patients and God. The second aim of the study was to describe the externalised faces of the problems ruining the patients' lives. Here Losses, Loneliness and Lack of money were described as problems causing amongst patients feelings of worthlessness, depression, paralysis, body aches and many more. The third aim of the study was to describe the characteristics of the narrative pastoral counselling practice that has been established. This practice (1) negotiates healing between binaries such as Western/African, culture and dogma/lived experience; patient passivity/patient agency; (2) respects the indigenous knowledge of patients as it is embodied in township spiritualities; and (3) aims at introducing patients to a community of care as well as a new community of discourse where they can experience spiritual healing. / Practical Theology / D. Th. (Practical Theology)

The study describes the counselling journey undertaken with 270 patients at the Family Medicine Clinic at Kalafong Hospital in Atteridgeville, Tshwane, between June 2000 and December 2003. Of these patients 75% were women, 74% were black and 97% Christian, with half of them belonging to born-again churches. A majority of the patients (52%) were unemployed and the others employed in minimum salary jobs. A third of the patients had attemped suicide at least once before, and a third had lost at least one close family member. With these patients a narrative pastoral counselling practice was established. Narrative counselling was practised as a MEET process in which the patients' problem-saturated stories were mapped and their problems externalised; they were empowered through the deconstruction of religious problem discourses, and their alternative stories were thickened by means of religious practices. This was a pastoral practice with a focus on religious discourses as problem discourses, and on the deconstruction of these discourses towards alternatives stories of faith. The first aim of the study was to describe the faces of religious problem discourses. They are (1) power discourses that hold patients captive in divinely sanctions hierarchies of gender and class, (2) body discourses that alienated patients from their bodies, (3) identity discourses that placed the religious identities of patients in conflict with their other identities, and (4) otherness discourses that created barriers between patients and God. The second aim of the study was to describe the externalised faces of the problems ruining the patients' lives. Here Losses, Loneliness and Lack of money were described as problems causing amongst patients feelings of worthlessness, depression, paralysis, body aches and many more. The third aim of the study was to describe the characteristics of the narrative pastoral counselling practice that has been established. This practice (1) negotiates healing between binaries such as Western/African, culture and dogma/lived experience; patient passivity/patient agency; (2) respects the indigenous knowledge of patients as it is embodied in township spiritualities; and (3) aims at introducing patients to a community of care as well as a new community of discourse where they can experience spiritual healing. / Philosophy, Practical and Systematic Theology / D. Th. (Practical Theology)

Working in a township is a challenging but also rewarding way of living. In this dissertation the researcher, in collaboration with the co-searchers, explore ways to mentor one another as they learn how to deal with trauma, either by experiencing trauma directly or witnessing secondary trauma. This leads to new ways of being 'in the moment', coping with trauma, forming a community of care and learning to be in an aware and empowered position. The responsibility of practical theology and the commitment to pastoral care are explored in the context of theology, and spesifically feminist theology, contributing to 'do hope' in Mamelodi. / Philosophy, Practical and Systematic Theology / M.Th. (Pastoral Therapy)