title: Justice in Therapy: an autoethnography

authors: Rodwell, Jan Dorothy

abstract: Questions of social justice are a central concern to the profession of counselling and at the same time readily overlooked perhaps because of the infusion of individualism and humanism out of which counselling emerged. This thesis is an autoenthnographic study of my history of an orientation of views and actions towards social-and- cultural justice. The intention of the study is to explain this history and show how it influences a centering of justice in my current counselling practice. This autoethnography is more than a story: any retelling is performative. The study thus tells of the shaping of my counselling practice and further shapes my practice as I elaborate the links between my lived experience and the practices of postructural therapeutic work. This elaboration begins in my early childhood in a Quaker family in New Zealand: for example, I recount children's stories that centred matters of justice. The focus then moves to the wider culture encountered in my adult life, shaped amongst other experiences by chosen alternative life-styles, the humanistic human potential movement, single parenthood, feminism, and my introduction to voluntary counselling through Youthline. The third focus traces the later development of my therapeutic practice, showing the inflluence of family therapies and the emergence of narrative therapy. Woven throughout these three life phases are accounts of efforts to live out social-and-cultural justice, with others’ voices threaded through my own.
My hope in this writing is to take the reader to their own histories of justice and the practices of these in their therapeutic work, with a view to keeping this conversation alive.

text: Justice in Therapy: an autoethnography Questions of social justice are a central concern to the profession of counselling and at the same time readily overlooked perhaps because of the infusion of individualism and humanism out of which counselling emerged. This thesis is an autoenthnographic study of my history of an orientation of views and actions towards social-and- cultural justice. The intention of the study is to explain this history and show how it influences a centering of justice in my current counselling practice. This autoethnography is more than a story: any retelling is performative. The study thus tells of the shaping of my counselling practice and further shapes my practice as I elaborate the links between my lived experience and the practices of postructural therapeutic work. This elaboration begins in my early childhood in a Quaker family in New Zealand: for example, I recount children's stories that centred matters of justice. The focus then moves to the wider culture encountered in my adult life, shaped amongst other experiences by chosen alternative life-styles, the humanistic human potential movement, single parenthood, feminism, and my introduction to voluntary counselling through Youthline. The third focus traces the later development of my therapeutic practice, showing the inflluence of family therapies and the emergence of narrative therapy. Woven throughout these three life phases are accounts of efforts to live out social-and-cultural justice, with others’ voices threaded through my own.
My hope in this writing is to take the reader to their own histories of justice and the practices of these in their therapeutic work, with a view to keeping this conversation alive.

year: 2014

title: An overview of natural hazard planning in the Pacific Island region

authors: Campbell, John

subjects: Pacific Islands

abstract: PICs are exposed to a wide range of natural hazards. Despite this it appears that traditionally communities coped relatively well and in many ways Pacific community remain remarkably resilient, especially in rural areas. Nevertheless, colonialism resulted in the decline of many activities that contributed to resilience. This was reinforced by the provision of disaster relief which has intensified in the post-colonial era. In this same period regional activities and steps by newly independent countries have seen the development of solid institutional arrangements for disaster management (mostly in the form of preparedness planning). However, measures to reduce disaster losses by incorporating risk reduction into national planning activities and decision-making have received little support to date from national governments. At the same time urbanisation is increasing rapidly in many PICs, but there has been a low level of implementation of effective urban planning and management, let alone disaster risk management. Moves are being made at the regional level to address these problems but are at an early stage.

text: An overview of natural hazard planning in the Pacific Island region PICs are exposed to a wide range of natural hazards. Despite this it appears that traditionally communities coped relatively well and in many ways Pacific community remain remarkably resilient, especially in rural areas. Nevertheless, colonialism resulted in the decline of many activities that contributed to resilience. This was reinforced by the provision of disaster relief which has intensified in the post-colonial era. In this same period regional activities and steps by newly independent countries have seen the development of solid institutional arrangements for disaster management (mostly in the form of preparedness planning). However, measures to reduce disaster losses by incorporating risk reduction into national planning activities and decision-making have received little support to date from national governments. At the same time urbanisation is increasing rapidly in many PICs, but there has been a low level of implementation of effective urban planning and management, let alone disaster risk management. Moves are being made at the regional level to address these problems but are at an early stage.

year: 2010

title: Faith, politics and reconciliation: the Roman Catholic Church, New Zealand Maori and indigenous Australians

authors: O'Sullivan, Dominic

abstract: The Roman Catholic Church claims from Jesus Christ a mission to teach consistently religious ideals in accordance with its understanding of God’s constant truth. These ideals include the belief that human creation in the image and likeness of God establishes rights to dignity, to culture, to religious freedom, to self-determination and a share in the common good. These ideals form the basis of the unique contribution to human affairs which the Church claims it can make. Although these are religious goals for the Church, they require political realisation, which means that the Church cannot but be alert to the formation of alliances of common intellectual aspiration around concrete political issues so that secular expression and context can be given to the magisterium (the Church’s body of teaching). At the same time the Catholic hierarchy is conscious of a need for caution in how it responds to political events lest that religious mission be compromised by a perception of it as a partisan political lobby group, thus lessening its capacity to make its unique contribution to human affairs. 

The Second Vatican Council reaffirmed that the Church’s religious objectives do not exist in isolation from the political order because human law, which is developed through the secular political process, should conform to the religious natural law. Prior to the Council’s reaffirmation the Australian and New Zealand Churches generally, but not exclusively, understated or misunderstood this relationship and became impotent in challenging secular objectives inconsistent with religious aspiration. In contrast when the Church has accepted the relationship, as it has since the Second Vatican Council, it has positioned itself to identify opportunities to give secular context and expression to religious thought. Such opportunities increased from the 1960s onwards as political developments in both Australia and New Zealand saw a secular questioning of racism and a broadening of the parameters of secular political debate to the extent that established Catholic thought was shifted from the fringes to the widening mainstream of public opinion on indigenous policy. 

Although the Second Vatican Council required attention to the relationship between religious ends and political means, the changing secular environment was a significant factor in encouraging public advocacy in support of indigenous aspiration, which peaked in Australia in the 1990s with substantial Church interest in the native title debate and with the Church playing a leading role in the entrenchment of reconciliation - a religious concept - on the Australian political landscape. In New Zealand there has been an equal but less vocal interest in reconciliation because the political process itself established the Treaty of Waitangi as a political context for reconciliation and a context around which the Church has been able to focus its interest in the advancement of Maori aspiration. Yet, while the Treaty of Waitangi and the associated bicultural discourse have provided contexts for the expression of religious principle, they have also detracted from the Church’s use of its own magisterium as the moral authority for the articulation of its aspirations for Maori.

text: Faith, politics and reconciliation: the Roman Catholic Church, New Zealand Maori and indigenous Australians The Roman Catholic Church claims from Jesus Christ a mission to teach consistently religious ideals in accordance with its understanding of God’s constant truth. These ideals include the belief that human creation in the image and likeness of God establishes rights to dignity, to culture, to religious freedom, to self-determination and a share in the common good. These ideals form the basis of the unique contribution to human affairs which the Church claims it can make. Although these are religious goals for the Church, they require political realisation, which means that the Church cannot but be alert to the formation of alliances of common intellectual aspiration around concrete political issues so that secular expression and context can be given to the magisterium (the Church’s body of teaching). At the same time the Catholic hierarchy is conscious of a need for caution in how it responds to political events lest that religious mission be compromised by a perception of it as a partisan political lobby group, thus lessening its capacity to make its unique contribution to human affairs. 

The Second Vatican Council reaffirmed that the Church’s religious objectives do not exist in isolation from the political order because human law, which is developed through the secular political process, should conform to the religious natural law. Prior to the Council’s reaffirmation the Australian and New Zealand Churches generally, but not exclusively, understated or misunderstood this relationship and became impotent in challenging secular objectives inconsistent with religious aspiration. In contrast when the Church has accepted the relationship, as it has since the Second Vatican Council, it has positioned itself to identify opportunities to give secular context and expression to religious thought. Such opportunities increased from the 1960s onwards as political developments in both Australia and New Zealand saw a secular questioning of racism and a broadening of the parameters of secular political debate to the extent that established Catholic thought was shifted from the fringes to the widening mainstream of public opinion on indigenous policy. 

Although the Second Vatican Council required attention to the relationship between religious ends and political means, the changing secular environment was a significant factor in encouraging public advocacy in support of indigenous aspiration, which peaked in Australia in the 1990s with substantial Church interest in the native title debate and with the Church playing a leading role in the entrenchment of reconciliation - a religious concept - on the Australian political landscape. In New Zealand there has been an equal but less vocal interest in reconciliation because the political process itself established the Treaty of Waitangi as a political context for reconciliation and a context around which the Church has been able to focus its interest in the advancement of Maori aspiration. Yet, while the Treaty of Waitangi and the associated bicultural discourse have provided contexts for the expression of religious principle, they have also detracted from the Church’s use of its own magisterium as the moral authority for the articulation of its aspirations for Maori.

year: 2003