A Psychology of Indigenous Healing in Southern Africa

Converging lines of evidence from various scientific disciplines consistently point to humanity's African roots. In this context, the term “indigenous healing” is used to refer to universal forms of healing that began in Africa and were developed further both locally and internationally. This article examines the notion of a psychology of indigenous healing and suggests that investigations continually reveal essential structures and practices of a perennial psychology underlying modern scientific, academic and professional forms of this discipline. Examination of such structures and practices illuminates an original psychological theme in Southern African indigenous healing involving recognition of Spirit as Source of Self that extends into transpersonal realms. Related themes include ancestral consciousness, familial and communal spirituality, healers and specializations, illness prevention, health promotion and various forms of empathy. The need for future in depth research into such psychological themes and issues is identified and explicated.     

National versus ethnic identification in countries of the Southern African Development Community (SADC)

This study investigated relationships between national and ethnic identities in eleven countries of the Southern African Development Community (SADC). Ethnic versus national identification, experiences of unfair treatment of ethnic groups, and like versus dislike of out-group neighbours were investigated. Round 6 Afrobarometer surveys data from Botswana (n?=?1 200), Lesotho (n?=?1 200), Madagascar (n?=?1 200); Malawi (n?=?2 400), Mauritius (n?=?1 200), Mozambique (n?=?2 400), Namibia (n?=?1 200), South Africa (n?=?2 400), Tanzania (n?=?2 400), Zambia (n?=?1 200), and Zimbabwe (n?=?2 400) were utilised for the analysis. Majorities of respondents in most countries, especially in those with a dominant majority group, identified equally as much with the nation and ethnic group, or more with the nation. However, ethnic identities remain relevant despite nation-building strategies, even in relatively ethno-culturally homogeneous countries. Ethnic identity salience was enhanced by unfair treatment. Findings suggest recognition and accommodation of diversity to be a prospective strategy to foster stability and peace.     

Hybridized Indigenous Healing in the Kyrgyz Republic: Helping Survivors of Violence

ABSTRACT

Harmful consequences of civil unrest in 2010, in the Southern region of the Kyrgyz Republic in Osh, continue to have an impact on communities to the present day. One of the most significant effects has been numerous undiagnosed cases of rape and other types of gender-based violence (GBV) that occurred during the interethnic conflict. The true prevalence rate of GBV cases is still unknown. For example, according to official data from the Ministry of Internal Affairs (2011), there were only seven cases of rape during the conflict; however, crisis center reports documented 322 rapes (Molchanova, 2016 Molchanova, E. (2016). Okazanie psihologicheskoi pomoshci licam, postradavshim ot genderno-gonasiliya vo vremya krizisov i chrezvichainih situacii. Bishkek, Kyrgyz Republic: AltynPrint Publishing House.  [Google Scholar]). Cultural norms dictate that women who experience GBV hide their “shame,” which is why only a small percentage of victims with PTSD symptoms resulting from GBV seek out services from professionals, such as from crisis centers, psychologists and psychiatrists, and police. Indigenous healers are often the first and only stop for help-seeking. However, the influences of diverse religious beliefs and practices as well as the development of Western-style helping methods in the Kyrgyz Republic have shaped the practice of traditional healing. This hybridization, which is a process of including religious and even medical practices into traditional healing, started in the middle of the 1990s, and now, the extensive networks of traditional healers in the Kyrgyz Republic often combine traditional rituals with Islamic prayer, herbal treatment, massage, and other techniques. This article explores the hybridization of indigenous healing in the Kyrgyz Republic as a consequence of a variety of social transformations, and, as a result of polymorphism, the complexity and clinical variability of posttraumatic symptoms in Kyrgyz cultural settings.     

Challenging the Frontiers of Community Psychology: A South African Experience

The development of community psychology is of vital importance in South Africa because of the historical context, questions about the relevance of mainstream western psychology and the current social change in the country in the post-apartheid era. Accordingly successful community psychology practices for a South Africa in transition need greater dissemination for access and utilization in the communities. This article draws on the community work conducted at the Itsoseng Clinic to show how and why community psychology could be made more relevant to the new South Africa. The Itsoseng Clinic is a psychology clinic that is situated in the township of Mamelodi. The clinic provides several services including counselling, psychometric assessment, psycho educational workshops, and HIV/AIDS pre and post-test counselling. The clients and community that the clinic serves are of low socio-economic status and struggle with a lack of material and personnel resources. The individuals working within the Itsoseng Clinic represent a diversity that is in itself a valuable resource for supporting the core activities of the clinic. This article explores various themes that were identified within the research study such as, making community, entering the ecology of life, closing the divide and bridging the boundaries.     

A Meta-Theoretical Framework for Counselling People of African Ancestry: An Ecologically Oriented Response to the Special Section Articles

This article is a review of the preceding six articles included in the Special Section related to the subject of counselling people of African ancestry. The major objective was to ascertain whether any recurring themes might be identified, and whether these might contribute to developing a meta-theoretical perspective for counseling people of African ancestry. Two theoretical strands common to the six articles have been identified: (a) the ecological-transactional model and (b) the self-determination theory. A multicultural perspective appears to best characterize effective counseling practice in African settings.     

Community Counselling in African Contexts

This article explores community counselling as a form of professional practice for psychologists, with a particular focus on practices that are relevant in African contexts. The discussion identifies and discusses various models of practice identified in community psychology, including an ecological perspective, a public health and community mental health framework, interventions that focus on promoting a sense of community, indigenous approaches to community counselling and a critical or social action framework. Examples relating to each of these models of practice are drawn from various African settings, providing practitioners with some insights into how theory can be operationalised into practices that are relevant to African contexts. The article concludes with a discussion on community research, with a particular focus on ethical considerations relevant to a community approach in African contexts. The latter discussion emphasises the importance of working with the community as partners, and suggests the possibility of developing a Code of Ethics aimed specifically at guiding community counselling practice in African contexts.     

Making the Connections: Community Capacity for Tobacco Control in an Urban African American Community

Developing community capacity to improve health is a cornerstone of community-based public health. The concept of community capacity reflects numerous facets and dimensions of community life and can have different meanings in different contexts. This paper explores how members of one community identify and interpret key aspects of their community’s capacity to limit the availability and use of tobacco products. Particular attention is given to examining the interrelationship between various dimensions of community capacity in order to better understand the processes by which communities are able to mobilize for social change. The study is based on qualitative analysis of 19 in-depth interviews with key informants representing a variety of community sectors in Harlem, New York City. Findings indicate that the community is viewed as rich in human and social resources. A strong sense of community identity and connectedness underlies this reserve and serves as a catalyst for action. At the time this study was conducted, all authors were at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health.     

Sister Friends: A Reflection and Analysis of the Therapeutic Role of Sisterhood in African American Women's Lives

Research with ethnically diverse women has found that friendships can enhance women's health and mental wellbeing (Greif & Sharpe, 2010 Greif , G. L. , & Sharpe , T. L. ( 2010 ). The friendships of women: Are there differences between African Americans and Whites? Journal of Human Behavior In The Social Environment , 20 ( 6 ), 791 – 807 . doi: 10.1080/10911351003751892 [Taylor & Francis Online] , [Google Scholar]). Sister friends can be crucial in assisting African American women and women of ethnically diverse backgrounds to face, address, and overcome, major transitions including stress and traumatic stress. Through a reflection and analysis of the relationship with a sister friend, the author explores the strength and challenges of sister friendship as well as therapeutic value. Recommendations are provided for sisterhood as a clinical intervention as well as for women therapist's self care. A case study of an African American woman in need of mutual sister friends is summarized. This exploration is shared through a womanistic psychology.     

Students' Views on the Value of Psychological Research: A Contribution to Indigenising Psychology in Botswana

The goal of the study was to explore the value that psychology students accredit to psychological research in a country like Botswana where psychology is a relatively new discipline. Forty-five undergraduate students belonging to the first cohort of psychology students at the University of Botswana participated in the study (males = 7, females = 38, age range 18–23 years). Data were obtained from student essays and evaluated with Qualitative Content Analysis. Students were of the view that psychological research should (a) increase knowledge to better understand human beings and the world (epistemological value); (b) create awareness about psychology within society so as to to assist society in combating societal problems (societal value); (c) enhance individuals' understanding of psychology so as to to accept psychology (individual value); and (d) up-date psychological theories to ensure their applicability in present times (theoretical value). Considering students' views could play an important role in indigenising psychology in Botswana.     

Merging Professional Training and Community Engagement Agendas: A Case Study

This case study explored the emancipatory foundations of community work through a schools-based peer support intervention. We use a case study approach to describe the context in which the intervention was developed, its emancipatory theoretical foundations, and the project's implementation components and process. The findings suggest that reflexivity is a useful tool for community engagement and for articulating tensions that arise in the enactment of community participation, empowerment and conscientisation. The intervention presented a unique opportunity to reflect on the operationalisation of theoretical concepts in community psychology, and to train professional psychologists for reflexive community work.     

Healing in the Midst of Chaos: Nah We Yone's African Women's Wellness Group

This article discusses the creative use of the group treatment modality to provide psychosocial support to African women refugees and asylum seekers with a history of refugee trauma, war, and human rights abuses who have fled to the United States. In particular, this article describes the African Women's Wellness Group developed by Nah We Yone, Inc., a small grassroots organization in the New York City area. This women's group draws on the tenets of traditional Western group psychotherapy while using African cultural awareness to provide healing. The rationale for this type of treatment, group design, specific techniques used to provide healing, along with various group-related themes and challenges are described. This type of treatment provides an example of the usefulness of group therapy technique with traumatized displaced women struggling to survive in a new cultural setting.     

Community Psychology Doctoral Theses: A South African University Case Study

The present investigation analysed the Community Psychology doctoral thesis trends with respect to student demographics, thesis topics, research methodology, research participant demographics, rural/urban focus, community empowerment focus, and programme development and evaluation at one institution. Of the 51 students who completed the course, 45.1% were Educational Psychologists, 33.3% Clinical Psychologists and 21.6% Counselling Psychologists. Self-help programmes, school-based programmes and non-professional-help programmes predominated. Of the 51 theses, seven addressed HIV and AIDS and one studied sexual violence. The majority used qualitative methodologies, and focused on adults. Only 11.8% focused specifically on rural communities, while 74.5% included community empowerment, 62.7% were programme evaluations.     

Mapping the state of the field of social psychology in Africa and patterns of collaboration between African and international social psychologists

Patterns of collaboration in social psychology from 2000 to 2010 were mapped to analyse the position of African authors in the international co‐authorship network using bibliographic records from the Thomson Reuters Web of Knowledge. There are very few social psychologists working in Africa, with the majority of these located in South Africa. Indeed, some small European countries boast more social psychologists than the entire continent of Africa. African authors published less than their non‐African collaborators, but had comparable status on joint publications. Co‐authorship relationships between African researchers from different African countries were generally mediated by partners from other continents, and direct collaboration between non‐compatriot African authors was very rare. The small size, and extremely sparse connection of the African co‐authorship network, is likely to be an obstacle both in the development of social psychology as a universally relevant discipline and in the penetration of social psychological knowledge in Africa.     

Cultural orientation,ego resilience,and optimism as predictors of subjective well-being in African Americans

Kashdan, Biswas-Diener and King (2008 Sen, A. 1999. Development as freedom, New York: Knopf.  [Google Scholar]) debated with Waterman (2008 Waterman, AS. 2008. Reconsidering happiness: A eudaimonist's perspective. Journal of Positive Psychology, 3: 234–252. [Taylor &; Francis Online] , [Google Scholar]) the value of eudaimonic perspectives in well-being research. In this invited response we discuss problems associated with reducing the conceptualization of well-being to subjective well-being (SWB). Although we like and use SWB ourselves as an indicator of well-being, the value of eudaimonic thinking, both in the generation of hypotheses concerning how goals and lifestyles link with wellness, and in broadening and differentiating the outcomes considered to be reflective of wellness. We agree that eudaimonic research in psychology is young and varied, but suggest that preemptively constraining the field to a “big one” (SWB) conceptualization of wellness would be less generative.     

Adaptive Coping Reduces the Impact of Community Violence Exposure on Violent Behavior among African American and Latino Male Adolescents

This study examined whether coping moderated the impact of community violence exposure (CVE) on violent behavior among 285 urban African American and Latino adolescent males assessed annually across 5 years. Composites indicating overall CVE (having knowledge of others’ victimization, witnessing violence, direct victimization) and approach to coping with CVE were created by averaging across years 1–3 (Time 1; mean ages 14–16). Adolescents classified as coping effectively tended to respond to CVE in beneficial ways (e.g., developing long-term solutions, engaging in positive reappraisal). Violent behavior was examined across years 1–3 (Time 1) and years 4–5 (Time 2; mean ages 18–19). CVE was longitudinally associated with greater violent behavior, adjusting for Time 1 levels of violent behavior. This association was significant only among adolescents with less effective coping strategies. Interventions targeting the enhancement of coping skills may be an effective method of reducing the impact of CVE on adolescent violent behavior. Sonya S. Brady is now an Assistant Professor in the Division of Epidemiology and Community Health, School of Public Health at the University of Minnesota (1300 South Second Street, Suite 300, Minneapolis, MN 55454-1015, USA; Tel.: +1-612-6241818; Fax: +1-612-6240315.     

中国领导心理与行为实证研究二十年进展

国内领导心理和行为的实证研究在过去20年间取得了很大进展,研究领域主要包括特质研究、行为和风格研究、权变研究与新领导理论研究四个方面。该文提出,重视在不同类型和发展阶段的组织情境中分析领导的机制,把焦点由领导者个体转移到互动的领导过程,强化中国文化下的本土化研究,加强实验室方法、追踪研究和质性研究,是今后领导心理与行为研究的重要趋势。     

Connecting Asians in global perspective: Special Issue on past contributions, current status and future prospects for Asian social psychology

This Special Issue (SI), which marks the 10th anniversary of the Asian Journal of Social Psychology , carries the triple roles of taking stock of the past, scouting the present, and envisioning the future. In so doing, it connects with the 6th biennial conference of the Asian Association of Social Psychology held in 2005, in which several keynote speakers (Atsumi, Hofstede, Leung, and Ward) addressed the same troika of concerns. Together with invited commentary from Chiu and Matsumoto they form the substance of this SI. As SI Editors, we read the papers several times, for what they were and, just as enlightening, for what they were not. In the process, we reflected on what is social about Asian social psychology and, equally intriguing, on what is Asian about it. The (tentative) conclusion that we have reached is that a practical and creative social psychology that is in, of, and for Asia, and defines itself as a network of like-minded collaborators gathered around a central purpose rather than as a geographic or genetic entity will have the best chance of realizing the potential of Asian social psychology.     

Attachment Disruptions,IQ, and PTSD in African American Adolescents: A Traumatology Perspective

Attachment disruptions, other traumas, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and intelligence quotient (IQ) were measured in a sample of 181 African American adolescents. Path analysis was utilized to test the effects of different types of attachment disruptions on IQ and PTSD. Findings supported that mother and father abandonments and being in foster care are associated with decreased perceptual reasoning, processing speed, and working memory, and increased discrepancy between perceptual and verbal toward decreased perceptual reasoning. Such suppression and discrepancy contribute to poor academic achievement. Results validated the traumatology perspective on attachment disruptions as traumas that are associated with PTSD, suppression of most IQ potentials, and with potential brain hemispheric desynchronization. The ramifications of these results for helping African American adolescents are discussed.     

Preparing for racial microaggressions: The role of cognition and emotion in the proactive coping process of African American college students

Traditionally, conceptual models of racial stressors (including racial microaggressions) have characterized the reactive experiences of African Americans, particularly identifying how African Americans cognitively, emotionally, and behaviorally respond to racial stress. The current study extends beyond the reactive coping experience and identifies nuances in the anticipatory and preparatory coping processes associated with racial microaggressions. Methods: 58 African American college students participated in a stress induction condition that exposed them to racial microinsults and prompted anticipatory concerns of further exposure to racial stress while completing a task with a racially insensitive peer. Following exposure to the stress induction condition, participants completed self-report questionnaires about their anticipatory thoughts, current affect, and proactive coping behaviors. Results: Threat-oriented thinking and negative affect were experienced in anticipation of racial discrimination; however, the endorsement of challenge-oriented thinking and positive affect were better predictors of how the current sample planned to use proactive coping behaviors to manage the anticipated racial stress. Implications: The current findings expand the racial stress coping narrative by capturing how the expression of optimism, perceived control, self-confidence, goal attainability, and positive emotion in anticipation of racial stress increases one's intention to implement coping strategies to minimize the impact of racial stress on task completion. Such findings provide cognitive and emotional targets for assessment when attempting to understand how African Americans are preparing themselves to manage anticipated racial stressors.