This dissertation of limited scope explored via a qualitative reflective approach how pastoral therapy and care practices contributed to workplace transformation and ethics at a factory that had to be restored to profitability. In Chapter 1, the study's research curiosity questions how pastoral therapy and care practices could inform business in its resistance of workplace trauma and injustice. The epistemology of contextual theology and social constructionism is reviewed in Chapter 2 in its support of the research. Themes and ideas such as; participatory ethical care, ethics, the prophetic role, narratives, workplace culture, witnessing and participant awareness and empowerment are applied to workplace culture transformation. Chapter 3 explores the factory's dominant story of low morale, financial loss and feelings of no hope for the future in context of discourses of capitalism. In resistance to the dominant story, Chapter 4 focuses on practices and experiences that supported the factory's alternative story and Chapter 5 reviews the factory's alternative story in context of purposeful transformation practice. Chapter 6 concludes the study by reflecting on the research curiosity, the research aims and the researcher's development. / Philosophy, Practical and Systematic Theology / M. Th ((Specialising Past Therapy) Practical Theology)

This qualitative participatory action research project examined how the spiritual dimension in pastoral therapy served as a life-giving resource to facilitate healing and growth in the lives of three Christian female university students. A postmodern epistomology, social construction theory and a contextual feminist theology informed the praxis of pastoral narrative therapy. The themes of subjectivity, meaning, religious development and religious experience were the focus of this study. Narrative practices were engaged in to utilise spiritual talk in the co-construction of an alternative relational identity with the research participants. The theory of religious development is discussed from a social constructionist perspective with an accent on a personal relationship with God as central to the developmental process. The religious experiences of the participants contributed to a spiritual awareness of being connected, in a dynamic way, to God, that transformed the clients' perceptions of problems and ways of addressing problems in their lives. / Philosophy, Practical and Systematic Theology / M.Th. (Practical Theology)

This thesis is about a pastoral theology of participation, guided by the process of participatory action research. It explores through the lived experience of the participants practical ways of doing friendship. On this research journey, I explore the discourse of individualism and how it blinds us to our connectedness as creations in the image of God. Without denying the benefits scientific development have to offer, I argue for a more richly textured individualism, inviting concern for the consequences of our actions on the well-being of others as part of our ethical ways of being. The Fourth Century description of a Christian as `friend of God' was the inspiration for the metaphor of friendship as a powerful counterweight against the isolating forces of a culture where the distorting ideology of consumerism and individualism are prevailing. I argue for the re-membering of this metaphor for God as friend, and the church as community-of-friends. Through the telling of tales of living friendship, interwoven with and giving life to the philosophy of friendship, I build further on the metaphor for the church as community-of-friends. I propose a Friendship Position Map and the metaphor of a circle of concern, arguing that although it comes more natural to us to love those close to us, and reach out to them in friendship, in an ethical spirituality of participation and mutual care, we are to follow Jesus' example and show hospitality towards all others, including strangers and enemies. Where many authors write about the importance of community, this thesis is about how to create the nourishing community we long for. It explores practical ways in which communities can overcome obstacles in their way to connect to each other through ethical ways of loving and doing friendship. It offers some ideas about learning to be friends in the inner circles of the circle of concern with those close to us, in order to do friendship in the outer circles. I explore the role of the church and faith communities as habitat for the nurturing and/or cultivating of living friendships, in inviting faith communities to live as community-of-friends; friends of God and of one another. / Philosophy, Practical and Systematic Theology / D.Th. - (Practical Theology--Pastoral Therapy)

Text in Afrikaans with summaries in Afrikaans and English / Mishandeling is een van die mees traumatiese ervarings wat die adolessent kan beleef en beïnvloed sy totale ontwikkeling. Die doel met hierdie navorsing was om deur intervensie te bepaal of mishandeling enige implikasies het vir die adolessent se verhouding met God. Die pastorale en Gestaltterapie is aangewend om die adolessent wat mishandel is in sy verhouding met God te begelei. In die pastorale Gestaltterapiebenadering is daar rekening gehou met die dinamiese konteks van lewenservaring en betekenisvelde in die Godsbeeld van die adolessent. Hierdeur is die impak bepaal van die adolessent se ervaring, waarneming en verwagting van God. Die uitgangspunt van die pastorale Gestaltterapie was dat die adolessent se verhouding met God disfunksioneel geword het as gevolg van mishandeling. Met behulp van die intervensienavorsingsmodel is tot die gevolgtrekking gekom dat die pastorale Gestaltterapeutiese benadering die verwronge Godsbeeld van die adolessent verander het sodat die verhouding met God kan herstel. SUMMARY Abuse is one of the most traumatic experiences the adolescent can have and influences his total development. This research was aimed at establishing, by means of intervention, whether abuse has any implications for the adolescent's relationship with God. The pastoral and Gestalt therapy was applied to guide the abused adolescent in his relationship with God. In the pastoral Gestalt therapy approach the dynamic context of life experience and areas of meaning in the adolescent's image of God was taken into account. Thereby the impact of the adolescent's experience, observation and expectations of God was established. The starting-point of the pastoral Gestalt therapy was that the adolescent's relationship with God became dysfunctional as a result of abuse. With the aid of the intervention research model, it was concluded that the pastoral Gestalt therapeutic approach has changed the distorted God-image of the adolescent to restore the relationship with God. / Social work / M.Diac. (Play Therapy)

The cultural paradigm shift from modernism to postmodernism offers challenges and opportunities to the church to develop pastoral practises that address the changing needs of members of congregations. In my research I follow a contextual approach to the study of theology. I describe the context of postmodernism and how the church manages its pastoral practises in this context. The social construction discourse and narrative epistemology offer new perspectives on how appropriate pastoral practises can be established within this context. I research the possible ways in which the social construction discourse and narrative epistemology can contribute to three key areas of congregational pastoral practices, namely preaching, group work and pastoral visiting. My research highlights the important contribution that members of a congregation can make in the process of constructing narrative pastoral practises that will assist them to story their lives in the context of the Great Story of God. The fusion of the life stories of the faithful with the Great Story of God inspires them to describe their life stories in rich and more fulfilling ways. In the process of this research, I endeavoured to make audible the input of as many of those that contributed to the construction of new narratiewe pastoral practises. I have accordingly included their contribution more comprehensively than would normally be done. / Philosophy, Practical and Systematic Theology / D.Th. (Practical Theology - specialising in Pastoral Therapy)

Text in Afrikaans / Individuals can be deemed weaklings within the family relations by social discourse that claims that the value of a human being is measured by his productivity and mobility. Parkinson's disease in its turn has a paralysing effect on the mobility of the physical body. The above-mentioned social discourse on the one hand and Parkinson's disease on the other hand become a dominant story that "paralyses" the individual. During research someone who has been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, related how she wrote an alternative story. This person, who practices a reformed spirituality, wrote an alternative story by using Christian faith language, which, in the end, halted the marginalising effect of Parkinson's disease. In this study the concerned participant had the opportunity to share her genuine experiences and her application of Christian language of faith to manage Parkinson's disease. / Philosophy, Practical and Systematic Theology / M. Th.

In this research project the research participants and I embarked on a journey through the "desert" of unemployment. I was introduced to the research participants at Jacob's Well, a ministry for people "between jobs" The effects of unemployment on a male's identity were explored, as well as the pastoral response of caregivers to people "between jobs". A phenomenological study was undertaken in which interviews with the participants formed the basis of the research. The structured section of the interviews was guided by the research questions, but the largest part of the interviews was about the participants' personal journeys "between jobs." The role of a ministry like Jacob's Well, catering for people "between jobs", was highlighted and recommendations for practical theology and pastoral praxis were made. / Practical Theolgy / M.Th. (Practical Theology with specialiisation in Pastoral Therapy)

Youth Centres such as Faure Youth Centre provide a challenge to questions such as violence and crime. This qualitative research journey started at Faure Youth Centre using narrative pastoral care and counselling and participatory action research to assist the young people there to find alternative ways of standing against violence and crime. Changing circumstances at Faure however, paved the way for the research to follow another direction. This resulted in different voices to emerge and for my family to receive an unexpected `gift' in the process. The `gift' that my pastoral care and counselling at Faure gave to my family initiated a process of change in us and transformed it into a spiralling journey of challenging patriarchal practices and finding alternative ways of living. / Philosophy, Practical and Systematic Theology / M.Th. (Practical Theology)

This exploration involves the influence of a system of patriarchy on both women and men in an inclusive way within business context. The work attempts to move away from dualisms that stereotypically define gender according to patriarchy. The challenge of this work is to find ways of describing women and men that is less defined by gender and more about our similarities as human beings. It has been suggested in the research that the business environment is still a male dominated environment. It is therefore the intention of this work to encourage ways of defining ourselves that one person does not hold benefit one over another in an abusive way. As the system of patriarchy has been endorsed by the church, the research considers how the pastoral therapist may be relevant to the business environment. / Philosophy, Practical and Systematic Theology / M. Th - Specialising in Pastoral Therapy

Tills research project arose from an awareness that many Christian women experience female sexual desire and the expression of sexual pleasure within a religious context to be a forbidden subject and that they are consequently isolated in silence. The social construction of sexuality within the history of Christianity was briefly explored to see which discourses underpin current constructions of White Christian female sexuality. Tills feminist, participatory action research project challenged the silence on women's sexuality by inviting three women to narrate their personal stories of sexuality. With the help of narrative therapeutic practices, some of the dominant social and religious discourses that constitute White Christian female sexuality were challenged and explored. This research project aimed at the co-construction of narratives of sexuality that will hopefully be life-giving to Christian women's experiences with sexuality. / Philosophy, Practical and Systematic Theology / M.Th. (Specialization in Pastoral Therapy))