Abstract:
This study focuses on pastoral interaction with women. Pastoral care and counselling
with women takes place within hierarchical societal and church structures.
In such societies those higher up in the hierarchy exercise power over others. The
male perspective has been the dominant one. This article is a critical description
and evaluation of Julian Muller's narrative model for pastoral counselling. The
premise of this model is that identity and story are related. This forms part of
what is known in a broader context as the hermeneutics of conversation. In pastoral
interaction the life stories of people are associated or disassociated with stories in the Bible. The article pleads for symmetrical interaction in pastoral
counselling. This means that women should not be sold out to patriarchal na"atives
in the Bible that devalue them. Contra-narratives in the Bible according to
which women have equal access to God could play an important role in pastoral
interaction.
