Secrets and Lemons
ISBN
Description
“Barbara Docherty’s life is one of light and shadow: loss and resilience, silence and truth. In Secrets and Lemons, she tells it all, with clarity and courage. ”~ Paula Penfold
For as long as I can remember, lemon juice in warm water has been my go-to choice to start the day. I appreciate its wonderful properties. Over time, this bright yellow fruit became a perfect metaphor for my journey of self-reflection. Years of hidden truths finally came to light as I peeled back the layers of my life.
Yellow often symbolises caution or cowardice, but it is also associated with optimism and mental clarity. I experienced all those emotions during my journey of self-awareness. I discovered that just like a lemon, an appealing outer skin can sometimes disguise inner layers that reveal a thin- or thick-skinned nature. When we bite into the juices beneath the surface, we may find the taste unpleasant and even too bitter to swallow. However, embracing and using these benefits can transform what began as seed into a new zest for life, ultimately capable of developing into something fertile and productive. ~ Barbara Docherty
“Barbara’s story is woven into a backdrop of some of the most fundamental social issues New Zealand faced. She writes of them not in an abstract way but as blows that landed squarely on her own life …
In these pages you will encounter honesty of a rare and affecting kind. The kind that exposes things most of us would keep buried. This is how it was, and this is what it was like to live it.”
About the author
Barbara Docherty is a retired registered nurse with a Masters degree (First Class Honours) in Behavioural Health Communication and a Post Graduate Diploma in Health Science. She was an honorary clinical lecturer at the University of Auckland and from 1998 to 2007 led the TADS (tobacco, alcohol and other drugs) behavioural health training programme initiated from the World Health Organization.
Barbara’s writings on health professional–patient communication have been extensively published in a wide range of medical and nursing journals, including her weekly column in the national journal NZ Doctor for 28 years. She was Canterbury Newstalk ZB’s talkback health nurse for eight years, provided regular newspaper health columns, and community and national radio commentaries, and was editor of the New Ethicals Primary Health Care Journal.
Previously working in the field of general practice and primary health care nursing and research, she was an invited on-line lecturer for students at Johns Hopkins University in the USA, and is the author of the primary health care nursing resource Nursing in General Practice: a NZ Perspective, which remains a key library reference.
Barbara was a founding member of the Practice Nurse Accreditation Board and co-authored the Standards of Practice for Practice Nursing. In 1997 she received a New Zealand Nurses Organisation award for services to nursing and midwifery. Her New Zealand board-appointed memberships have included the Alcohol Liquor Advisory Council, the Health Promotion Agency, and the Lotteries Health Research Committee.