Meet Elize Morkel

I am a registered Clinical and Counselling psychologist with the Health Professions Council of South Africa. I live and work in Somerset West which is situated in the picturesque Cape Winelands about 40 km outside of Cape Town. I love starting my days with a walk or run in the area of the Helderberg Nature Reserve - normally my time for reflection and meditation while enjoying the mountains, fynbos, trees, occasional encounters with wildlife and glimpses of the ocean.

My career as a psychologist started in schools for children with special educational needs. In 1989, after seven years in various schools, I opened a private practice in Somerset West where the focus is on therapeutic work with people of all ages, including couples and families.

During the mid 90s my awareness of the pain and suffering of the majority of South Africans was heightened through witnessing the political changes in the country and the effects of the stories reported by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The fact that my services were limited to middle-class people - who make up less than ten percent of the community - was becoming increasingly burdensome for me. In conjunction to this I was disturbed by the discrepancy in services available to poor communities compared with those enjoyed by the small middle-class community. When I volunteered my services to people from disadvantaged communities I was confronted with the effect of the limitations of my training and experience as well as with the isolated, privileged life I lived as a white South African. The nature and extent of the problems which confronted people from impoverished communities seemed to be overwhelming and I felt inadequate in my attempt to offer effective services.

I was introduced to narrative therapy in 1992 when I attended a workshop by Michael White, Australian family therapist and co-founder of the narrative therapy approach. I found the focus on resources rather than deficits very exciting. I was also attracted to the way in which narrative therapy takes into account the social and political contexts of people's lives and make visible the influence of power-relations. It provided me with frames for making meaning of some of my personal experiences of oppression as a woman in a patriarchal society. At the same time I needed ways in which to start making sense of my own position as white Afrikaner who participated in and benefited from the injustices of apartheid in this country. I find it a useful frame from which to consider the effects of racism and other social injustices on the lives of the people living in post-apartheid South Africa. Since then, this approach to therapy has become a focus of study and specialization for me.

In 1999 I moved my private practice to my home and started volunteering my services to communities by going to them. A vision to make these skills and practices available to more therapists within the South African context developed as I witnessed the effect of the application of narrative therapy ideas and practices on the communities of clients that I consulted with.

I have developed an expansive training and supervision practice, offering a variety of services both within the academic and professional fields. Pastoral therapy and theological reflection has become an area of interest and specialization as a result of my involvement as supervisor of pastoral therapy students of the Institute for Therapeutic Development. In 2003 I completed an MTh in pastoral therapy.

Colleagues from ethnic/cultural groups other than my own have been my guides into understanding more about their cultures and communities. I have developed ways to include the voices of a diverse group of participants and the voices of those that they work with in the training activities that I organise and present.

I also engage in the reflection on and participate in the recording of narrative practices as well as supporting researchers and practitioners with the recording of narrative practices. I am the co-author of a book Matchboxes, butterflies and angry foots: Narratives of therapy with children and young people of South Africa. I actively pursue opportunities to present papers at conferences.

My narrative therapy training programme is supported and expanded upon by hosting workshops for international trainers and the selling of Narrative therapy literature.

An exciting development has been the visit by a group of Norwegian family therapists who participated in a four day workshop I presented in Cape Town in 2005. In this workshop the application of therapeutic practices within the South African context of struggles with our racist past, poverty, HIV/AIDS and violence were illustrated and experienced by the group. I hope to make this training opportunity available to more therapists from around the world.

The ripple effect of the therapeutic and training work within various communities adds great joy and meaning to my life and practice.