The first webinar entitled “Psychology in and for Africa – Where are we now?” attracted a number of scholars and professionals in and outside the field of Psychology. It focused on the challenges faced by diverse populations in the African continent, and how through African-centred philosophies they are able to respond to those challenges. The second webinar is organised around the theme “Decolonising therapy: Africa(n) – situated psychological practice”. African people have disturbing experiences of oppression and trauma as a result of a colonial system that had a negative impact on the mind, body, soul and spirit. It is for this reason that therapies which respect Africa’s history and culture are imperative. Most therapists have been trained using western theories which occupied a larger part of the training curriculum. The effects of colonialism continue to influence the worldview and our practices. In this webinar, we re-imagine how therapy is globally understood. We will explore ways to mitigate systemic harm and incorporate decolonial practices into the therapy process. Healing remains our ultimate hope. 

In honour of Africa Day 2023,  PsySSA is releasing the recording of its first webinar of its 2023 series.

Webinar Abstract

The speakers, in their respective areas of expertise, engage the questions of where to for African Psychologies, elaborating on some of its key challenges and transformative possibilities.

Exploring notions of meritocracy and its challenges for diversity in
professional practice, considering the histories of resistance and activism in Africa and current practices of pathologizing that deploy psychological language to undermine women’s resistance in Africa against oppression, interrogating new directions of afro-centric psychology, and posing critical pedagogical questions of how we teach an African Psychology curriculum that grapples with our racial histories, the webinar seeks to move the current debates on African Psychology a step further by opening up even more urgent questions about how we do psychology, what it means to engage questions of interiority that are connected to our freedoms and imaginations of what it means to be African and to practice psychology of/from/for Africa.