Abstract
M.Ed.
At the end of their training in 2009, students, who were doing a programme in school counselling at a university in Gauteng, submitted professional portfolios to illustrate their learning. This research inquiry focused on the metaphors developed in these portfolios in order to obtain insights into the personal and professional development of school counsellors-in-training. Meeting the portfolio requirements meant that students had to call on their in-depth self-knowledge and reflective skills.
The school counsellors-in-training used metaphors in verbal or visual art representations as a reflective tool in these portfolios. These metaphors were used to transfer meaning from one object to another on the basis of a perceived similarity (Fritz in Dunbar-Krige & Fritz, 2006). The value of metaphors is that they enrich the transfer of meaning which takes place (Smith, 2002). In this study, this transfer of meaning in these metaphors enabled me to explore the identity which was being created. Therefore, the importance of this research lies in what it reveals about the development of a professional identity as a counsellor during the training process (Du Preez & Roos, 2008).
Learning, in a school counselling context, refers to the personal and professional development of the student counsellors-in-training. This development was revealed in their exploration of their own selves, reflection, their supervision, their narratives and the use of metaphors to describe their journey within the programme. This personal and professional development was both a conscious and an unconscious part of the learning process. According to Seitz (2005), the consciousness deals with situations that require novel and non-stereotypical responses, while unconscious mechanisms deal with stereotypical behaviour.