..….the powers that be are ordained of God. Romans 13:1

Psychology in Zimbabwe has undergone different transitions up to this day and the transitions keep on promising to continue. Before the regulations of 2016 registration was a bit easy with psychologists being registered with a first degree in psychology and some with masters without the requirements of a board exam. The Allied Health Practitioners Council Zimbabwe (AHPCZ) had two psychology representatives Dr Debra Machando and Dr Edwin Nharirire who served psychology from 2016 up to mid 2020, Dr D. Machando was also Chairperson of AHPCZ.  In 2020 AHPCZ held elections for the whole board which covered representatives of Psychology, it was later however settled that psychology should just have one representative. Based on the highest number of votes Dr Herbert Zirima became the sole representative of Psychology in Zimbabwe in AHPCZ. The elected council members in AHPCZ then voted for Dr H. Zirima to be Vice Chairperson of the Board AHPCZ which regulates twenty professions in line with the Health Professions Act (Chapter 27:19).

The council representatives of psychology in 2016 provided a framework in which psychology as a discipline and a protected field was to operate. The document was good though it needs improvement which we wish the current regulations of 2021 under Dr Zirima are going to improve. Though psychology operated and was regulated within the regulations, it was good in that there was management in terms of persons and others could not trespass the field of psychology. The challenge of this approach was that it was stringent and excluded qualified persons who wanted to get on the register of psychology. Persons who wanted to register as psychologists had difficulties in the era of 2016- 2019. The persons in the register of Community Psychology were very few and as for Counselling Psychology there was no one on the main register. Clear clarification to why this direction was pursued remains unknown and whom did it benefit. The only guess which we have is that it benefited only the few within the register as psychologists.

During 2016-2019 was the only association of psychology Zimbabwe Psychology Association and there was a general feeling that there was a conflation between AHPCZ and ZPA. Notwithstanding the spirit of unity and collaboration, the general thought of those outside and some within psychology was that such conflation of ZPA and AHCPZ could only support the narrative that the representation of psychology during that tenure was captured by ZPA and could not exercise its discretion independently. It is important that AHCPZ representation in psychology remains independent so that it can independently stand for diverse thinking within the various groupings now present in psychology such as those also in Society of Zambezi Psychology and others who choose to be non aligned in any associate groups.

The New representative of psychology came with a promising approach to psychology in the year 2020, which included but not limited to allowing registration of the first Counseling psychologists who were stopped from such by the previous representation of psychology on grounds of scope of practice and place of practice. Persons on the register of Community psychology did also increase under the new representative. AHPCZ has since 2020 done wide consultations on the regulations of psychology after the 2016 regulations have passed their time, the consultations were made via emails and both interns and psychologists contributed. We now wait to see a document which is reflective of the family of psychology which is not elitist in its approach. The new representative in psychology ensured that syllabuses in various psychology fields are clarified with measurable out puts and also that the format for file marks allocation is clarified. This has been a major shift as it removes ambiguous  marking of psychological files by examiners which often was based on what they thought was good rather than on clear set agreed psychological standards.

Going forward we believe that psychology should remain strong in two fronts thus in research quality and also numerically should grow in quality and quantity. We wish to see quality textbooks being published within the cultural context of Zimbabwe and psychological tools which are culturally fair in our context. We pray also that within the new representative of psychology found in Dr H. Zirima we can unite as psychologists from various races and with collaboration of various universities have our own journal of psychology.

Prosper K Mushauri

Coordinator

Society of Zambezi Psychology