ME AND SALUS AND MY SERVICES    

   

The oldest medical text written in the third millennium BC stated: ‘The sages did not treat those who were already ill; they instructed those who were not yet ill…‘ (Strümpfer, 2003: 69).

 

I am a psychologist whose view is to look at life from the positive side. Although anxiety and mood disorders like depression, as well as personality disorders are some of my interests, I also like to work on the preventative side. There is so much that could be done to ensure that we live a happy and fulfilled life.

 

As a former teacher I did a BA with major subjects Afrikaans, Psychology and Mathematics (UP, 1973). I qualified as a teacher with a postgraduate diploma in education after which I taught maths for a while at Hoërskool Eldoraigne near Pretoria. After my marriage to a church minister we worked in three congregations in Brits, Rustenburg and Johannesburg while bringing up our four children. During those years I did a BEd (Gifted Child Education) and MEd on creativity at Unisa (respectively in 1987 and 1991), after which I taught maths at different schools (Hoërskool Linden; Helpmekaar Privaatskool) and tertiary institutions in Johannesburg (Daveyton College of Education; RAU College for Health and Education).

 

While teaching extra math classes I realised that I had to pursue my passion which is psychology and after applying—in the post-apartheid years at eight universities—for a place on a professional degree programme, I was finally accepted by Unisa in 2005 and qualified and registered as a psychologist with the HPCSA in 2008. The theme of my dissertation was on psychological wellbeing.  

 

Another special opportunity came my way in late 2007 when I had the chance to do a DPhil in Leadership in Performance and Change at the University of Johannesburg, in the Department of Industrial Psychology and People Management in the Faculty of Management. In my theses I used autoethnography as methodology (a narrative approach) to investigate the relation with myself against the background of a cultural setting. The implications of the theses could very well be applied in my practice.

 

But back to wellness. In tracing the roots of hygiology, one have to go back to ancient Greece. Physicians worked under the patronage of Asklepios, a physician of antiquity, later created the god of medicine. In that tradition, each disease has a well-defined cause which can be controlled by attacking the causative agent. Western medicine still relies on ‘magic bullets - drugs that exert specific effects on specific diseases through known biochemical mechanisms’ (Strümpfer, 2003: 69). Hygia, a daughter of Asklepios and the goddess who watched over the health of Athens, was not involved in the treatment of the sick, but she was the guardian of wellness. In Rome she became known as Salus.

 

Salus’ view on well-being could be related to the practice of much more ancient Chinese healers who see their role as increasing natural resilience and resistance. The statement continued, that medicines used to combat diseases which have already developed, can be compared to the behaviour of those who begin to dig a well after they have become thirsty.

 

Let us begin to dig the well long before we are dying from thirst.  

ABOUT ME