Abstract
M.A. (Clinical Psychology)
In this project, the author explores, analyses and interprets the experiences of a group of
students and teachers who worked together at a farm school for almost a year. Certain
pertinent questions relating to the nature of therapy, training, research and community work
are examined. The dominant view is that therapy and community work are different
activities, requiring different sets of skills, for which different training is needed.
Fundamental to this discussion is the issue of what is meant by community. The author
proposes that community can be usefully conceptualised as the meaning people give to the
evolving processes of their inter-connectedness, and their co-creation of ideas. Furthermore,
these processes contain the potential for individuals to experience personal shifts that may
be described variously as learning/growth/change/transformation. There is impetus for
transformation at the interface between connectedness and disconnectedness. This renders
unnecessary any differentiation between the process of training students for clinical and
community work. Central to all training would be a person's ability to connect and utilise
this connectedness, or its counterpart of disconnectedness, in a meaningful way. Essentially
all interactions, including those in a training, therapy, research and community context, could
then be viewed as a process of co-creation around people's sense of connectedness disconnectedness.
The implications of all the above are that the processes of co-creation of
community constitute fundamental elements of training, therapy, research and community
work. The author uses an alternative research paradigm, subscribing to the principles of
ecological inquiry, according to which research and intervention are inseparable.