We proclaim to you things which we have seen and heard, ……..1 John 1:3

When you set out to write something especially against wrong practices, the first thing which you must deal with is within your mind, one must think of the consequences which might ensue after the writing. What should be always in the mind of the writer is that what he has sat down to write as bad practices are practices being done by someone be it a cooperate. As history is replete with such stories, some might seek to punish the writer in whatever way they are able.

Psychology as a profession in Zimbabwe has been besieged by so many problems which are to the detriment of the professionals therein. The challenges mainly are Non employment of psychologists in government hospital institutions, replacement of psychology professionals with paraprofessionals and pro bono (free) counselling services offered by organizations with huge funding. Whilst this might be not exhaustive a list of challenges let us look into each of the challenge.

Government has steadfastly froze the posts of psychologists in mental health institutions. Paradoxically thousands graduate from its universities every year with hopes of employment. The other paradox is that there has been a rise in the need of mental health services especially on drug and substance abuse, however there seems lack of interest amongst government to engage behavior specialists (psychologists) to engage in behavior change programs to remedy this situation. Psychiatric hospitals are without psychologists (eg Ngomahuru, Bindura and Mutoko psychiatric units) and some are understaffed, usually with unpaid psychology interns covering the gap which qualified psychologists should be doing had the government made a choice to employ them. From the conduct of government the message is clear to psychologists and those who aspire to be, that they can train to be psychologists for seven years at their own personal costs and after that government will not employ them in their hospitals regardless of their need.  

The replacement of professional services by psychologists with other paraprofessionals is another challenge that is facing the discipline of psychology. The promotion of these unbecoming practices is done based on false and deceitful narratives sold to the public and donor communities. The common narrative which has been cooked and sold is that there are shortages of mental health practitioners hence to avoid the gap we have to train paraprofessional thus at most elderly grandmothers to fill the void, this narrative though dubious and untrue has an impact to draw sympathy from the donor community and as the constructors of the narrative so wish, they receive huge funding to that effect. The truth however is that there are over three hundred qualified psychologists in Allied Health Practitioners Council of Zimbabwe (AHPCZ) register which can be employed to do the work of their profession. Metaphorically those unqualified to play with psychological gun powder are doing so at the expense of qualified professionals.

The third challenge in this paper is the portrayal that psychological services are for free. The offering of psychological services for public and aggressively advertising the free services by organizations with huge funding prejudices other professionals in the same field who have no donor funding but survive on consultation fees and also considering that psychologists have tight advertising policies which restrict aggressive commercial advertising. Friendship bench has been offering services to the public and most recently it has now targeted health professionals offering them free counseling services. Considering that Friendship Bench has funding of above USD 2 million offering psychological services for free, to then compete with psychology practitioners with no single funding but have to endure regulatory fees from AHPCZ and buy expensive tests like the Weschler’s intelligence test which costs above USD 1 400 without duty taxes and freight charges is a bit unethical and unfair to the discipline of psychology.

The temptation from this is then try to proffer solutions, rather l will not do such and possibly allow the reader to think on these things. Hopefully people will engage sincerely and talk about these matters.

Prosper K Mushauri

Psychologist