Should Individual Counselling be a Luxury? Re-Evaluation Counselling

Re-Evaluation Counselling (RC) is a form of peer counselling and is also often called co-counselling. All participants are trained in the theory and techniques so that although co-counsellors may differ in levels of experience, we meet and session together as equals. Its the only practice of human growth and development I know, which places the hurts caused by socio-cultural oppression (starting with the oppression of parents and young people and including racism, classism, sexism etc.), at the core of human distress and imparts a number of methods and group processes to address these.

Re-Evaluation Counselling isn't a luxury. The training is affordable and once you've learnt it, its free.You can have a session in many countries on the planet with another RCer and it will only cost the price of the trip you paid to get there. Workshops cost, but that's your choice.
One of  the most important features of co-counselling is the emphasis on emotional release.

A Cape Town Day

I didn't see any!

Sometimes one gets far more than one seeks. And in Cape Town this is often true. Take for example the morning traffic jam up Paradise Road, Newlands. There the mountain looms close overhead, every detail etched by the morning sun. It beats Los Angeles or London, doesn't it? So last Friday, there I was having breakfast, preparing to spend the morning writing, when I heard on the radio that there were dolphins chasing fish in Simonstown harbour.
This might happen quite frequently but us landlubbers in Plumstead don't always know about it. I thought I'd go and have a look.
When I got there, I couldn't see anything out at sea, but it was a

glorious day so I wandered. There was a sign saying Mosque, uphill from the Main Road. In the paving of the lane, there was a motif, looking like something one might find in Glasgow by Charles Rennie Mackintosh. As I walked up, I saw that the design was picked up in the stained glass windows of the building at the top - an Art Deco mosque! Built in 1911, with the minaret added in 1925. A shopkeeper told me that the Heritage museum was interesting. This was in a house called Amlay and the signs said 'closed on Friday'. But I could hear someone in the garden so I asked him if it really was closed, because the front door behind the security gate was open. He said "Try ringing the bell." So I did. After a short while a woman came to the door.

Women's Bodies (part II)

Video highlights of Endangered Species gives a taste of what the London summit was like. Why 'Endangered Species'? Susie Orbach says: The young woman who can feel free to explore her interests without being preoccupied by how her body appears or focus on what procedure she should have in the future to change it, is becoming an ‘endangered species’.

Sibongile Khumalo - jazz and classical singer

Here in South Africa we still have a multiplicity of images of women that inspire us, but for young women they are fading fast. The quest for the perfect body is in the ascendancy. As Susie says, Body Hatred is one of the West's most nefarious exports. Look at this ad. for deodorant in which Lira, a hugely popular singer in our country especially among young women, says: The whole world is like a stage and I have to look perfect all the time.....We are being manipulated to use a product which has nothing to do with looks, the inference being that if we perspire less we can be perfect like Lira. What is implied about the natural propensities of our bodies to perspire and for that matter smell, is just another well-known addition to the catalogue of Body Hatred. For a wonderful contrast to all of this take a look at the football grannies, who have also been used in advertisements. However young women are not the target of these. 
I wonder if people know of some other South African examples of Body Hatred production that they'd like to share?