A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Masters in Clinical Psychology in the Department of Psychology University of Zululand, South Africa, 2010. / Philophonetics Counselling is a modality of counseling and psychotherapy based on Rudolf Steiner’s Psychosopy, created by Yehuda Tagar in the 80’s in England and Australia. It applies the powerful sensory, emotional and psychosomatic responses to the sound of speech-in association with body awareness, movement and visualization-as extensions of the conventional component of the psychotherapeutic interaction (Tagar, 2003; Lifschitz 2002). The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of Philophonetics Counselling on sexually abused children between the ages of 12 and 17 years. This study was conducted in the Bloemfontein area of Free State and Piet Retief area of Mpumalanga. The nature of the research is concerned with the applicability of the modality to individuals under the age of 18 years, and the individuals’ psychological responsiveness to the modality. Data was collected during and after counseling session, by means of drawings, sound, gestures and movement. Ten (10) individuals participated in the study and the age group of the participants was between 15 and 17 years.

Submitted in accordance with the requirements for the degree of Masters of Arts in the subject of Clinical Psychology in the Department of Psychology (Faculty of Arts) at the University of Zululand, South Africa, 2011. / Spousal abuse is a public health concern and is common in all races and ethnicities. It may take on various forms such as; physical beating, verbal/ emotional/ psychological abuse, sexual abuse, or financial abuse. Women often remain in abusive relationships for financial security, fear of further harm, and because of socials stigmatization. This study focuses on the psychological empowerment of female victims of spousal abuse through philophonetics. Philophonetics-counselling is a therapeutic intervention which appreciates the complexities of the human form. It is an approach that offers the possibilities of healing and experiencing the fullness of what life could be. Seven female victims of spousal abuse participated in the study and these participants reside in the Rustenburg area. A qualitative approach was utilized, with data being analysed applying hermeneutics. The results indicated the success and effectiveness of the philophonetics modality. Each participant disclosed and described significant shifts in their production of the imprints (IT) of abuse. Self help tools were given so as to ensure that participants could prevent further IT’s from entering their body, and thereby heal themselves. Findings in the current study show that the utilization of such a modality is effective in empowering the target population. It is therefore recommended that the process of empowerment through philophonetics be continuous.

In South Africa sexual abuse has reached pandemic proportions and continues to increase in the sense that thousands of people are being sexually abused every day and the long term effects of sexual abuse are there to stay. These long term effects are imprinted in the pre-verbal dynamics of the living body and they can appear at any time in the present upon a conscious trigger. This research study seeks to investigate the effectiveness of two therapeutic modalities which are Philophonetics counselling and Trauma Focused Cognitive Behavioural Therapy in the treatment of sexually abused individuals within the South African context. Philophonetics counselling extends the therapeutic conversation into the nonverbal dimension of human communication, which enables the client to go beyond the limitations of verbal expression and access directly feelings, emotions, reactive patterns, old defenses and new potential embedded in the deep layers of the living body. It is a method of exploration, expression, and transformation of inner experiences, since words are limited in the amount of our experience that they convey. Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioural Therapy is a type of intervention modality that represents a synthesis of traumasensitive interventions and well established CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy) principles developed from the Cognitive Behavioural school of Psychology.

Philophonetics-Counselling is a specific form of a bodily-oriented expressive therapeutic approach, defined for the purposes of this study as an approach that uses the non-verbal bodily modalities of movement, gesture, visualisation, and sound, as well as forms of artistic expression, as elements of a process, which furthers the physical and psychic integration of an individual. In view of the recent rise in bodily-oriented therapeutic processes, this study intends to describe and explore the role of especially bodily representation, but also mental representation in the phenomenon of the transformation and representation of sensory-emotional experience in the developing psyche. This is achieved by exploring the essence of described ‘lived experience’ of Philophonetics-Counselling, which is a means not only to elicit this phenomenon of transformation, but also to gain access particularly to bodily representation and bodily knowing. This exploration is guided primarily by a dialogue with object relations theory, exploring conceptualisations provided by Bollas, Ogden, Winnicott, Bion, and Klein. This dialogue is also, however, informed by contemporary bodily-oriented theorists, including Merleau-Ponty, Gendlin, and Shapiro. . The essence of this experience is explicated from qualitative material according to the Duquesne Phenomenological Research Method, which requires of the researcher to allow the inherent constituents and dynamic process to emerge such that the phenomenon can present itself to his/her awareness as it is in itself. Following this, by engaging with psychological theory in an attempt to understand this explicated structure, specific attention is given to the manner in which bodily representation and bodily knowing, particularly as applied or encouraged in therapeutic process, is intimately involved with thetransformation and representation of sensory-emotional experience. This research process reveals a means to rework and explore perhaps more directly the representations of self and other. Furthermore, through the open-ended and playful engagement with both the theory and the material, this descriptive-dialogical study concludes with the notion that although linked to the phenomenon of transformation and representation, consciousness, understood in terms of psychic truth, seems to extend beyond the seemingly differing mentalities of both mind and body, as perhaps dwelling in (the) neither flesh nor fleshless… / Dissertation (MA (Counselling Psychology))--University of Pretoria, 2005. / Psychology / unrestricted