Dr Marlene Winberg

We learn how to frame powerful questions to unravel our problematic storylines, while focussing on our strengths and values. In this reflective space, we learn specific techniques to step away from our stories and look at it from a distance, so that we may gain a bird’s eye view to our story. Victor Frankl, the famous philosopher and psychiatrist who survived the holocaust, put it this way in his book, The Meaning of Life:

Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.

In narrative therapy we often say: The problem is the problem. The person is not the problem (White 2000)

What is it not?

Narrative arts therapy is not psycho analysis and it does not diagnose. It is a philosophy that draws on the arts to honour our innate human ability to reconstruct our stories in beneficial and healing ways.

What techniques do we use during a session?

The process relies on a range of the expressive and creative arts, including writing, mind-mapping, basic painting or drawing, movement, music, storytelling, play, clay or sand – depending entirely on the individual’s specific needs.

This hands-on methodology supports a person’s ability to tell their story in a self-compassionate way, through images and words. From this vantage point it becomes easier to re-construct a strong self narrative based on your values, skills and dreams.

Who benefits from the Narrative Arts Therapy programme?

My practice focusses on women and teenagers whose story lines often include anxiety, grief and loss, chronic illness, trauma, abuse or a major life change, including immigration, menopause or divorce.

What does the Narrative Arts Therapy programme involve?

The programme consists of an introductory session, during which we will identify the storylines you want to work on. This is followed by completing the programme in four or more sessions, depending on the individual’s needs.

To make an online appointment, or a face to face session in Fish Hoek, Kalk Bay or Constantia, call + 27 (0) 83 3925153 or email marlenewinberg@gmail.com.

Thanks for popping in.

Marlene