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Re-authoring divorce narratives into hopeful stories

M.Ed. (Educational Psychology) / As an educator, psychologist, or counselor one is frequently confronted with the devastation and turmoil Divorce brings to the lives of children and how it aims at stealing their Hope and happiness. The aim in this research study was to consult children about their relationship with Divorce in order to learn about hopefulness from them when standing up to Divorce. To discover Hope in the face of Divorce, this qualitative study was conducted with children utilising participatory action research and narrative therapy. The theoretical foundation operated from, was the post-modernist paradigm and social constructionist discourse. This theoretical foundation was selected as it draws from the same philosophical markers as participatory action research and narrative therapy. The children who participated in this research study were two girls that I conversed with in therapy as part of my internship at a private practice. The two young girls I conversed with, both referred themselves for therapeutic conversations as they were being confronted by Divorce in their families. They are respectively ten and eleven years of age. These two girls participated after the finalisation of the divorce proceedings in their families. In this study, I drew on multiple methods of data collection during the research process in order to construct and generate rich data with the participants. The data included therapeutic conversations, artworks, journal texts and whatever else the children brought to our conversations. The recording of the children's experiences (data) was done by gathering and reflecting thick descriptions. These thick descriptions reflected their Hope and enriched my understanding of Hope.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:uj/uj:11830
Date23 July 2014
CreatorsNel, Yolandé Lorraine
Source SetsSouth African National ETD Portal
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeThesis
RightsUniversity of Johannesburg

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