Akapapa – The Journey Home

This thesis explores sustainability in counselling and professional practice through the lens of lived experience, focusing on the impacts of spiritual abuse and religious trauma on personal identity and professional frameworks. Using autoethnography, poetic inquiry, and thematic analysis, the research investigates how practitioners can foster sustainable practices that prevent burnout, promote ethical safety, and disrupt cycles of harm. This work contributes to the growing field of trauma-informed, culturally grounded approaches by examining how sustainability can be reimagined within professional counselling and therapeutic spaces. At the heart of this study is an exploration of spiritual abuse as a barrier to sustainability, disrupting self-care, rest, boundary-setting, and ethical practice. Drawing on Māori and Pacific health models, the thesis redefines healthy relationships, both interpersonal and professional, demonstrating how relational frameworks support sustainability. Through a deeply personal and critically reflective lens, this research examines the "mosaic self", embracing the complexities of identity, bias, and self-awareness as essential to ethical and sustainable professional practice. The thesis also explores grief and loss as transformative forces, framing them as essential companions on the journey of self-discovery and sustainable practice. Concepts of rupture and repair are examined, offering insights into navigating conflict, discerning safe relationships, and fostering interdependence. The research emphasises the interconnectedness of individuals, communities, and leadership, highlighting the delicate balance between connection and solitude in maintaining sustainable engagement with the work. Ultimately, this study presents a framework for sustainable practice, integrating creativity, faith, indigenous values, and trauma-informed methodologies. It offers practical tools for practitioners, charitable organisations, and professional communities seeking to cultivate resilience, longevity, and ethical leadership. The research concludes by underscoring the significance of self-reclamation, identity, and belonging as pillars of sustainability. This study is a call to action for counselling practitioners, organisations, and leaders in therapeutic spaces to embrace a holistic, ethical, and creative approach to professional and personal sustainability. By challenging unsustainable work practices, deconstructing inherited trauma narratives, and fostering relational accountability, this research contributes to the evolution of culturally responsive, ethically sound, and regenerative professional practice.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Professional Practice

Level thesis:degree_level

Masters

Grantor

Otago Polytechnic

Year dc:date.issued

2025

Author dc:creator

• Campbell, Ingrid Svedlund

• sustainability
• ethical leadership
• counselling
• spiritual abuse
• religious trauma
• self-reclamation
• interconnectedness

Statement dc:rights

• CC BY-NC-ND Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International

Language dc:language.iso

en

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/10652/7169

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:null:10652/7169