The Sociology of Culture and the Paradoxical Nature of Diversity. Culturally-Infused Practice in Counselling.

Posted on by Chele Yntema
Born from and into relationship, we are - the human race is, anything but an isolated species.  Indeed, there is a universal reality that self-concept and identity are insurmountably enmeshed within ever evolving cultural contexts (Lago, 2005; Lott, 2010; Matsumoto & Juang, 2008; Siegel, 2012).  Yet, it would be foolish to dismiss that this same enmeshment, if not explicitly conceptualised, has the potential to create group and individual levels of segregation and identity disintegration that...Read More
You only lose what you cling to…

You only lose what you cling to…

Posted on by Chele Yntema
I never really understood concepts like this until I left a life that wasn’t fitting well with my soul. At the time I thought what I was clinging to was the “right thing”. That holding fast to embedded and imbued traditionalist values that I had been taught, yet that I had not had the courage to fully examine with my own true heart. —- It took time, patience with myself, and hope in what I...Read More
Sense Making

Sense Making

Posted on by Chele Yntema
While I know the virtue of sense making, there is a lot of things in my life that are yet to make sense. Yet, the more I take the time in self compassion to sift through the inner workings of my mind, the more I realise just how important this is to my daughter. Knowing who I am and why I am who I am allows my daughter to know her mum completely in truth,...Read More
Belonging

Belonging

Posted on by Chele Yntema
I have always had a sense of belonging as “home” - so much so that in the depths of my trauma I can remember crying out “I just want to go home”... I resonate with the theory and practise that highlights the importance of our generations past. Of both the wounds and the triumphs that we may carry in our DNA. I think it can become easy to dismiss inherited traits, propensities, physiological memories, and...Read More

Case Study: A Spiritual Identity Crisis

Posted on by Chele Yntema
In the darkest depths of my own lost identity I once said, “Hope knows the sun has risen even when the clouds cover every ray of light”. I wonder why it is that as humans we question pain and suffering so intently, yet we continue on? Where does our endurance come from? Why are we enfolded in both weakness and in hope (Vanier, 1998, p. 163)? How is it that some of us seem to...Read More

My Innate Disposition: understanding my past in truth, creating coherent narrative, and coming to identity

Posted on by Chele Yntema
All alone, I sat waiting. I was lost. It was not that I did not know where I was, nor where I was going, nor even where I had come from… No, it was deeper than that. Lost was a sadness that penetrated so deep within me that my very existence seemed indifferent, dismissible, and worthless. Lost was me without worth; it was a sense that there was no such thing as an identity within...Read More