About

Dear Reader,

I have served the international human rights organisation, The World's Children's Prize Foundation as South Africa coordinator, writer and trauma counsellor for more than three decades. In this capacity, I have witnessed hundreds of resilient, yet desperately vulnerable women and children from all walks of life tell their stories.

As a result of my life-long association with storytelling and the narrative arts, I registered for a PhD at the University of Cape Town in 2015, determined to find a scientific context for the union between narrative arts therapy and indigenous knowledge. I was awarded a Doctor of Philosophy for this trans-disciplinary research at the inter-sections of science and the arts, psychology, anthropology, literature and history (Winberg 2020).

This doctoral research in the Faculty of Science enabled me to draw on my experience to develop a therapeutic narrative arts programme in consultation with indigenous communities in southern Africa and the Dulwich Centre in Australia – a global pioneer in Narrative Therapy.

My current post-doctoral research is an investigation into the neuroscience of storytelling and the brain's evolutionary capacity for making sense of life through visual and verbal narratives.

Thank you for your interest.

Kindly,

Marlene.