The Ways in Which Adolescents Cope and their Relationship to Age,Gender and Specific Religious Variables

This study investigated the roles of age, gender, the importance of religion/spirituality, attending church activities and frequency of prayer on the types of adolescents’ coping strategies. Participants were drawn from ten public high schools. Data on coping strategies, personal variables and religiosity and spirituality were collected using the Adolescent Coping Orientation for Problem Experiences (A-COPE) coping inventory. Scheffé posthoc tests were used to evaluate associations between the coping strategies used by adolescents and the identified personal and faith-oriented variables. Gender and age explained some differences in types of coping strategies preferred. Specifically, females used the developing social support coping strategy more than males; older adolescents used the avoiding problems coping strategy more than younger adolescents. Adolescents for whom religion/spirituality is of lesser importance, obtained a significantly higher mean score for the avoiding problems subscale. Both personal variables (age and gender) as well as one of the faith-oriented variables (importance of religion) were identified as important role players in using developing social support and avoiding problems as coping strategies by adolescents.     

Perceptions of South African Emerging Adult FET College Students on Sexual Practices in Relation to Religion

HIV and AIDS are rapidly spreading amongst the world’s 15- to 24-year age group, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. Despite vigorous government interventions and campaigns, 10 % of South African youth in the age cohort 15–24 are infected with HIV and AIDS. Furthermore, for the first time in history the world has its largest number of individuals under the age of 30 years. Researchers are desperately seeking a solution and have found religion to play an important role in moderating risky sexual behaviour amongst youth. This exploratory qualitative study aims to increase our understanding of emerging adult Further Education and Training (FET) students’ perceptions of the role of religion and religious beliefs in their sexual decision-making and practices. The qualitative data emerged from five focus group discussions, each consisting of 12 heterosexual emerging adult FET college students aged 18–24 years, selected using random sampling. Participants were representative of all the major South African racial groups (Blacks, Whites, Coloured and Indians) as well as different religious and cultural groupings. Secularisation theory was used as a theoretical framework for this study. These focus group discussions revealed the following themes: Theme 1—religious institutions need to embrace change in order to become effective social agents of change. Theme 2—a need for open discussion and communication concerning current issues related to young people’s sexual health (by religious institutions/religious leaders). Theme 3—perceptions of religion’s negative sanctions towards sexual behaviour. Theme 4—religious leaders’ indifference and abdication of responsibility to the problems that youth face. Theme 5—religion and condom-related beliefs. Theme 6—perceptions of religious leaders as role models. Theme 7—emerging adults general concern for the moral decay of society. Theme 8—perceptions of whether religion has an influence on young people’s sexual decision-making and practices.     

The scholar as activist: Postcolonial feminist film practice as a tool for social development,empowerment and resistance

This article explores the concept of the “scholar as activist” in the context of postcolonial feminist film practice, and the successes and shortcomings of a research design conceptualised to explore the potential that self-reflexive filmmaking offers to articulate the narratives of South African Hindu women (and other suppressed groups). My point of departure was a strong sense of the misrecognition of my own identity as a South African Hindu woman of Indian descent, in stereotypical representations of Hindu women in mainstream film. South African Hindu women, and suppressed groups by extension, have stories that need to be told. The question emerged of how such stories could be told through the medium of film. Could the interface between the medium of self-reflexive film, the academic filmmaker and the narratives of South African Hindu women translate into meaningful social action that would offer a platform for resistance to mainstream (mis)representations? A critical reflection on my initial filmmaking process, and an analysis of the film text itself, illustrated that as an academic with various platforms of expression at my disposal, I had assumed a superficial similarity to and yet privileged position over those whose story I attempted to tell. How then could women use self-reflexive filmmaking to tell their own stories that resist limited mainstream gendered representations and reclaim their own identities? In a play between an academic register and an overtly self-reflexive narrative style, I thus explicate the organic process of developing a revised methodological approach for the postcolonial “scholar as activist”.     

The Right to be Desperate and Hurt and Anger in the presence of Carl Rogers: A racial/psychological identity approach

This paper attempts to establish the beginnings of a conceptual and theoretical framework for psychotherapists and counsellors to 'work with' racial identity psychologically and psychological identity racially in cross-cultural clients. Using the video presentation - of a black client in therapy with Carl Rogers (in the 1970s) - Right to be Desperate and Hurt and Anger as a case vignette, the paper argues that racial/psychological self understanding is possible in therapy. The therapy sessions are critiqued in terms of race and multi-cultural psychotherapy and counselling. Since the video was widely used in the 1990s and is currently used in counselling and multi-cultural therapy training, it was felt that an examination and analysis of some of its contents would offer clinical possibilities in terms of race, culture and ethnicity. Through the analysis of significant excerpts the paper attempts to show that the conflicts, confusions and tensions that arise between a white therapist and a black client can be used creatively to engender trust, openness and cross-racial therapeutic possibilities.     

(Re)placing multiculturalism in counselling and psychotherapy

Since multiculturalism is not fully theorised it has created much confusion in counselling and psychotherapy. It has been criticised for ignoring questions of power relations, and for emphasising the cultural differences of ethnic minority groups rather than focus on their similar predicaments of racism, sexism, misogyny, homophobia and economic oppression. Furthermore, it has not provided clinically useful information within which therapists can conduct assessments and diagnosis, understand clients' subjective distress and cure seeking expectations. This paper explores this issue by highlighting the magical (non)sense of multiculturalism and its racialised forms, and argues that multiculturalism is untenable if it restricts itself to a few marginalised ethno-cultural client groups, rejects gays and lesbians, patronises indigenous forms of healing, and maintains a fixed racialised 'black-white' paradigm of practice. It suggests that a point of departure for multiculturalism from an ethno-culturalism-centred philosophy to one that is pluralistic and reflexive of the needs of all clients (irrespective of ethnicised, racialised, gendered, and sexualised subjective identities) is critical if it is to be useful psychologically. To arrive at this critical juncture, multiculturalism would need to be (re)placed, not disavowed but re-centred in the practice of counselling and psychotherapy to embrace diversity and difference across and beyond the current categories that constitute itself. Replacing multiculturalism in a 'third space', an 'in-between space'—a critical multicultural space—where dominant hegemonic cultural meanings could be reinscribed and where racism, sexism, misogyny, homophobia and other 'representations of patriarchal terror' could be critically interrogated to empower marginalised voices. The paper explores three strategies for creating a 'third space' in multicultural counselling and psychotherapy: the inclusion of white people as clients; the converging of race, gender, sexual orientation, class and disability issues; and the integration of indigenous and traditional healing practices. Bringing it all together under the umbrella of diversity or critical multiculturalism will ensure an ethical and clinical practice commensurate with our current understanding of the complexity and sophistication within which clients construct their subjectivity.     

Women's mental health: coping mechanisms in the context of poverty

This study explored the coping mechanisms of women from an economically disadvantaged community in a South African setting. Data on symptoms of depression, prevalence of ego-resilience and demographics were collected from 60 women (African women aged 20–78 years) using a survey and individual interviews. The quantitative data were analysed using the Spearman's correlation coefficient and Mann–Whitney-U tests, while thematic analysis was used for the qualitative component. The results indicated protective factors of inner strength, peer relationships, religion and music, and community group participation as coping mechanisms for depressive symptoms in resource scarce environments. A sense of purpose was found in caring for children, and social participation was a crucial support mechanism.     

Matrices in black and white: Implications of cultural multiplicity for research in counselling and psychotherapy

There is a lack of resarch into the relationship between culture and ethnicity, and the processes and outcomes of counselling and psychotherapy. This paper explores current and historical approaches to defining ethnicity and cultural identity, and makes suggestions for how these constructs might be more usefully understood.     

Multi(ple) cultural voices speaking “Outside the Sentence” of counselling and psychotherapy

This paper examines the notion that marginalized clients through their socio-cultural and geo-political histories are positioned “outside” the masculine cultural metaphors and conventional theoretical epistemologies of counselling, psychology and psychotherapy. In other words, these minoritized clients are “outside the sentence” of the texts and contexts of therapy. The discursive practice of therapeutic reconstitution and restoration produces a particular set of vocabularies and sentences that facilitate transformation and psychic equilibrium consistent with the process of individuation and self actualization. However, for marginalized groups, such as black and other visible minority, women, deaf, gay and lesbian clients the hegemonic masculine narratives of counselling psychology and psychotherapy only make it possible for these clients to be “outside the sentence”, not just grammatically and metaphorically of the therapeutic project, but in the external reality of how the practice is clinically governed. In other words, the social and cultural marginalization outside the clinic room is in a dialectical relationship with the therapy dyad. For the minoritized client being “outside the sentence” produces the effect of being “inside” another process, i.e., the history of subjugation, domination, diaspora, and displacement. This paper explores this issue and argues that the only way for counselling, psychology and psychotherapy to bring the diversity client “within the sentence” of therapy is to assign and re-inscribe the history, memory and pain of “the Other” voices to the “inside” of the therapeutic space, to interrupt and disrupt the hegemonic masculine narratives, thus transforming “non-sentences” into sentences and paragraphs, and eventually into essays of the discursive subject.     

'I say what I like': Frank talk(ing) in counselling and psychotherapy

The black consciousness psychology or philosophy of Steve Biko, the political activist who died in police detention in the 1970s in South Africa, is considered. Those aspects of the philosophy relating to empowerment, self-concept development, the internalisation of racism and the racial identity theory of black people are discussed. It is suggested that the 'frank talk' method is a particularly useful tool in counselling and psychotherapy with culturally diverse clients. These ideas and the issue of empowerment of black clients are explored through the examination of a case vignette. In reflecting on the narrative of Jo-Anne, the need for counselling and psychotherapy to accommodate ethnic-minority cultural traditions of healing is affirmed.     

(Re)Searching for a client in two different worlds: Mind the research‐practice gap

A criticism voiced by counsellors and psychotherapists is that research does not truly reflect the complexities of therapy. Researchers, on the other hand, accuse practitioners of not attending to research findings and suggest that as a result they engage in an ill‐informed process. This polarised understanding can give rise to the situation where the client is missed, falling into the research‐practice gap. In reality the research‐practice gap gets smaller and smaller every time a practitioner employs — which is often the case — a complex and sophisticated construct system in search of a client's psychological distress. The metaphor of the ‘search’ seems to become a point of connection between the practitioner's search and the researcher's (re)search. As a way of exploring this issue, the paper briefly considers the research‐practice gap and the critique of current research. It argues that counsellors and psychotherapists are themselves engaging in research when they practise therapy since every counselling and psychotherapy session is basically a (re)search process.