“Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree.” Martin Luther

The prospect of being part of the 5th Southern African Psychology Conference was both exciting and thought provoking. The conference title promised a relatively ‘new’ twist in viewing the field, insinuating a much-anticipated redefinition of psychology, one that is relative to the African context. The conference was preceded by a number of workshops, all tailored to gear delegates into the better understanding of the theme, Psychologies in Dialogue. Within this paper it will briefly relate my subjective understanding of the presentation topics I attended as they were presented, then again briefly give my personal view of the topic, which will also provide my reflective review of the conference itself.

New Voices in Psychology Workshop: (Itumeleng Masisi and Herman Janse van Vuuren).

The New voices in Psychology workshop presenters’ main focus was to encourage students to exercise their right to be heard, to speak without fear and dare to put forward psychological ideas, concepts, hypotheses and even theories based on the here and now experiences, that is, the Afrocentric view within Psychology. Not only did the pair succeed in clearly pointing out the necessity and importance of this, they also went further to outline the requirements, procedures and criteria expected to maximize chances of publication. The New Voices in Psychology workshop was the perfect launch pad for those interested in research and publication amongst those who attended the 5th Southern African Students’ Psychology Conference. It challenged budding psychology students to speak out in journal frameworks.

Round table discussion: Psychologies in dialogue

The conference started with a round table discussion that induced critical reflections on psychologies in dialogue. The audience was regaled especially by Professor Kitty Dumont, a seasoned social psychologist, whose speech challenged African psychologists to change the status quo especially with regards to social realities, which exist within ‘different’ settings from those propounded in most psychological theories.

Women Students as Political Activists

Elewani Ndewani, who presented on Women Students as Political Activists, focusing on the Fees Must Fall Movement, further elaborated this tone. Ndewani spoke of how women/students have taken over social action platforms to voice their needs and the challenges they are facing, in an effort to change the status quo that systematically threatens to further worsen the students’ condition by increasing tuition fees. She alluded to the power of collectivism, sacrifice and unified voices in shifting realities by challenging history and creating imagined futures, thus effectively focusing on achieving social change.

 The impact of globalization on the psychological mindset  

Sibangaliswe Maphosa gave an eye-opening presentation on the impact of globalization on the psychological mindset. Maphosa spoke of mindset shifts in the context of globalization, describing the world as ‘a small community or village’. He emphasized on how migration has created a dimension of ‘oneness in humanness’ and touched on the divide created by land boundaries, where fellow humans are termed ‘foreigners’ and received with suspicion, paranoia, and discrimination. His reference to the term ‘Ubuntu’, the African worldview which pursues intense humanness, interdependence and harmony highlighted the need to respect diversity, that is, age, religion, gender, sexuality, language and so on. This, he proposed, would inspire effective leaderships and opportunities as well as foster good social relations. To achieve this, Maphosa proposed a mindset shift to accommodate unity, a proposal which calls for a complete overhaul of global socialisation systems.

 Differences between African and western cultures in counseling

Within a divergent context of ‘oneness in humanness’, Emmanuel Maziti presented on the differences between African and western cultures in counseling, with emphasis on the issue of confidentiality. His approach immediately clinched the right balance when he included the mediating word ‘fusion’, referring to the various manners in which western counseling rubbed up African counseling the wrong way within his comparisons between his specific sample from Zimbabwe’s Masvingo urban and western approaches to counseling. He discussed the differences in the psychological definitions of the word ‘confidential’ itself between the two divides and concluded there was no right way to counsel Africans in general, using a western approach. His findings concluded that traditionally, Africans advocate for total confidentiality, where the therapist themselves have to either hold a position of absolute power, ensuring absolute confidentiality. For Maziti, western confidentiality provided rather slack conditions for Africans, suggesting that apart from the therapist being fully conscious, systematically updating his/her memory by keeping records as reminders of past conversations, the approach further breached African confidentiality standards through actually confessing the possibility of sharing information with others others, on a need to know and solve issues. It is therefore clear that extensive work needs to be conducted to revise these differences, and like Maziti suggested, infuse the two together.

The Cost of being a student Psychologist. Is it worth it?

Debate was triggered by the title, The Cost of being a student Psychologist. Is it worth it? Psychology students are at a far much greater advantage than other students. Student psychologists have numerous theories at our fingertips that can alleviate our problems if applied appropriately within our various spheres of existence, behavioral theories,  humanistic/motivation theories, cognitive theories, thus we can more than anyone else understand human thought processes. We also have biological theories, which bring light to internal human activities and their influence on observable behaviors. Psychologists, better than anyone, understand the structural and chemical compositions that lead to particular behaviors such as hormonal imbalances, neural activity, neurotransmitter secretions, maturation and degeneration, which determine behaviors. Moreover, Psychologists are exposed to knowledge regarding human abnormalities and exceptionalities, such that we can detect personality disorders, emotional disorders, mental disorders and even some of the physiological disorders they comorbid with. Psychology students therefore should have the ability to be less offended by human errors in whatever context they manifest, drastically reducing the impact of most of human problems.

Psychology in its present configuration served the average black African?

Understanding Psychology can assist in tailoring psychological mindsets that can diffuse into all other spheres of black African existence. In other words, Psychology is the blueprint of the Human Manual. Psychology imagines an Africa where the level of open-mindedness allows for freedom of expression for all, male or female, regardless of age. An Africa where equity and equality can exist peacefully alongside each other, where culture or religion does not carry any constraints and yet remain a personal choice that is respected by others. Psychology dare to imagine an Africa that socializes individuals to accept who they are regardless of sexual orientation, body size or shape, skin complexion, disability or capability. Such a psychologically infused Africa, can serve the black African.

Psychology now a shadow of psychiatry

In sync with the promised dialogues in psychology, Prosper Mushauri tackled the debatable issue of Psychology’s demotion into the shadows of Psychiatry. Mushauri spoke of Psychiatry as a rival of Psychology, declaring one of its (Psychiatry) major woes to be that ‘drugs are more dangerous than what they are supposed to treat.’ In a lot of ways he was right. Drugs and their counteractive effects do justifiably deserve a bad reputation within the psychological realm. He discussed how the nosology system of mental disorders such as the DSMs have simply ‘grouped’ human abnormalities based on symptomatic diagnoses, all to be alleviated by the use of drugs and for the most part, implemented for financial and economic gain. Little dispute was brought to that, not all Psychiatrists are bedding greedy Pharmaceutical giants. The psychological field acknowledges biological abnormalities that account for some abnormal human behaviors. As such, shall we not therefore propose a decent marriage between the two fields, one that is preceded by a courtship infused with the mutual understanding of the biological nature of humans? Our all-consuming love for humanity can guide a fully functional marriage between Psychologists and Psychiatrists, one that is governed by strong ethical guidelines and law.

Finally, all the topics presented on at the conference unanimously spoke of one theme, “Psychologies in Dialogue”. Indeed, the conference sought to strengthen African connections and to build a strong spirit of comradeship that can help psychology people in Africa to define our tomorrow. In many ways it communicated lasting relationships. The 5th Southern African Students’ Conference, has given student females of color voice of humble origins a platform to communicate. Like most, psychology people we remain aware that change does not occur overnight, but will agree with Martin Luther- “Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree.” Positive change always exists where there is hope, I believe. I thank you.

Anesu C Chimombe:  Second year undergraduate 2017

                                     Bssc Honours in Psychology Woman University in Africa (WUA)