Morality, imagination and human decision making

This article considers the use of an adventure-based medium, known as 'ropes courses', to enhance the personal growth and professional development of Counselling Psychology students. Six students who completed their Master's degree in Counselling Psychology at the University of Pretoria, South Africa, between 1999 and 2000 participated in a ropes course day. Each student was asked to reflect, in writing, on four questions relating to his or her experience. Their reflections were analysed in terms of analytic guidelines proposed by Giorgi. Five main themes emerged from the analysis, namely: boundaries, anxiety, roles, cohesion and trust. It was concluded that the ropes course day contributed to the personal growth and professional development of these students and that an adventure-based medium, such as 'ropes courses', can be a valuable component of Counselling Psychology training. offers three Master's degrees (i.e., Clinical, Counselling and Research Psychology) that enable students to register as psychologists with the Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA). The MA degree in Counselling Psychology runs over a two-year period and focuses on three facets.The first facet is psychological theory. Students receive theoretical training in the following subjects: Fundamental Psychology (

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Currently, there are many street children in South Africa (SA). They have been robbed from the safe harbour of family life and on a daily basis experience the stormy sea of street life. Society has an obligation to intervene in the lives of these street children through, for example, quality education, basic health services and sport programmes. This article focuses on six street children in Tshwane, SA, who participated in a 'Learning Life Skills through Sport' programme that ran over a period of six months in 2006. After the programme had been completed the six street children were asked to narrate their experiences of the programme. These narratives were analyzed by means of narrative analysis. From the findings it seems that these six street children acquired 'personal-related skills' (e.g. respect, enjoyment) as well 'sport-related skills' in various sports (e.g. soccer, cricket), and that the 'Learning Life Skills through Sport' programme allowed them to experience a safe harbour amidst the stormy sea of street life.

Postgraduate counselling psychology training at the University of Pretoria (UP), South Africa (SA), is done according to the researcher-practitioner model. An important aspect that is addressed during the unfolding of the postgraduate counselling psychology programme is professional development, which consists of professional practice and personal growth. Professional practice addresses the legislative context of practising psychology in SA, while personal growth focuses on the "person" of the postgraduate counselling psychology students. During the programme personal growth is addressed through supervision, counselling and an adventure experience. The purpose of this research is to describe the personal growth of 19 students through an adventure experience in the province of KwaZulu-Natal, SA. The students participated in various adventure activities (archery, obstacle course, sea kayaking, sea rafting, abseiling), as well as in eight group debriefing sessions. At the end of the adventure experience the students reflected in writing on their adventure experience. The research was conducted from a descriptive phenomenological position and the written reflections analysed according to the Duquesne Phenomenological Research Method (DPRM). From the analysis it seems that the essence of the students' personal growth pertained to students growing in awareness; challenging their boundaries; discovering uniqueness, creating trust amongst one another and demonstrating the ability to collectively establish group cohesion.