Lisa Lopez Levers

Traditional Healing as Indigenous Knowledge: Its Relevance to HIV/AIDS in Southern Africa and the Implications for Counselors

This article integrates the results of several culture-based studies conducted over the past decade. Specifically, links are made between the continued relevance of the African traditional healers corpus of knowledge, the efficacy of the healers cultural authority, and the need for HIV/AIDS-related strategies and interventions that are culturally sensitive, especially counseling. Results of an initial investigation of traditional healing in Lesotho, Swaziland, and Zimbabwe are integrated with more recent research in Botswana and Namibia. Findings from these studies are meshed with preliminary results of an ongoing investigation of the contextual influences and cultural factors associated with the spread of HIV/AIDS in the southern African region. Outcomes of the combined investigations have supported further examination of traditional healing as an indigenous knowledge system, of its relevance to HIV/AIDS, and of its significance to professional counselors in Africa. Related recommendations are offered for consideration by those working within HIV/AIDS systems of intervention.

Focus Groups and Related Rapid Assessment Methods: Identifying Psychoeducational HIV/AIDS Interventions in Botswana

Publisher Summary This chapter offers an introduction to focus groups as a qualitative research method. The focus group approach to research lends itself well to use as a qualitative method insofar as it assists in obtaining in-depth understandings of perceptions, opinions, and the ways in which people make meaning of a variety of aspects of their lives. Making preliminary decisions about all aspects of the focus group is an obvious important early step in the planning process. An essential first step is ensuring that the research design has undergone a human subject review. The protocol for the focus group must be developed, and the size and composition of the group must be determined. A sample of one specific application, relating to an HIV/AIDS intervention is presented, illustrating how the focus group can be used as a qualitative research strategy in this context.

Samples of Indigenous Healing: The path of good medicine

In this article, I review five articles selected for this Special Issue of the International Journal of Disability, Development and Education on indigenous healing. I have considered the various traditions of indigenous healing, and I situate my analysis within the context of disability, development, and education. Such an analysis reflects the conundrum involving professional identity politics and the elusiveness of intentionality. In response to the five articles, I offer commentary on the social constructions of health, illness, healing, and disability, as these constructs vary across cultures. I suggest that the ability of professionals to inspire trust among clients is potentially a practitioner marker of efficacy across medical paradigms, and is a dynamic that is often misunderstood. I illuminate the healing process as a dynamic of reciprocity and engagement. Finally, I discuss and emphasise the need for developing collaborative programming and integrative service delivery models.

Addressing Urgent Community Mental Health Needs in Rwanda: Culturally Sensitive Training Interventions

Rwandan leaders in the health and educational sectors have begun to discuss the necessity for establishing culturally appropriate community-based mental health counselling services in Rwanda, especially trauma counselling. The need for a community psychology approach is anchored in the lingering effects of the genocide and the continuing post-traumatic stress symptoms suffered by many in the population. Capacity building in an effort like this would require the design of multi-level counselling curricula that are sensitive to the social structures within Rwandan culture. These curricular endeavours call for the development of a National Counselling Centre to serve as a structural mechanism for organizing community-based counselling initiatives. We consider the community health services needs in Rwanda here, along with associated challenges and strategies for effective mental health services in a country with a recent history of genocide. A community psychology approach to mental health would benefit Rwandan society by making trauma counselling and recovery services available and accessible to citizens throughout the country.

Rehabilitation in Seven Sub-Saharan African Countries: Personnel Education and Training.

This article outlines rehabilitation personnel education and training in seven countries representing a geo-culturally contiguous region of sub-Saharan Africa: Botswana, Cameroon, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. It identifies and explicates practices to inform similar or parallel rehabilitation practices in the United States (U.S.). Rehabilitation personnel in the African sub-region have diverse professional preparation backgrounds: physiotherapists, occupational therapists and speech and language therapists. Overlaying this structure of professional cadre are rehabilitation technicians and community health workers with variable levels of formal training; - mostly in-house from public and private-not-for profit organizations serving people with disabilities. Conclusions drawn from this review emphasize implications for rehabilitation counselor education in the U.S., and in particular prospects for internationalizing the rehabilitation counselor education curriculum.

Voices of African Traditional Healers: Cultural Context and Implications for the Practice of Counselling in Sub-Saharan Africa

The healing paradigm implicit in many sub-Saharan African cultures is embedded in African cosmology, and thus the recognition of this is essential for understanding Traditional African Healing practices and implementing collaborative counselling practices. To this end, this article focuses on the cultural importance, or voice, of traditional healers in sub-Saharan Africa. The current article uses an ethnographic approach to analyse systematically the cultural context of indigenous healing practices in sub-Saharan Africa. The anthropological importance of Traditional Healing practitioners, the context of healing, and the changing legal and ethical status of Traditional Healers are addressed as pivotal in furthering the development of this crucial, yet under utilized resource. The authors propose that such cultural understanding is highly relevant to the work of professional counselors.

Community-Based Rehabilitation for Human Development in Sub-Saharan Africa

Disability is one of the most prevalent of human conditions in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), with at least 15 million people (or 15% of the population) living with significant functional limitations and restrictions to full community participation. Community-based rehabilitation (CBR) is a procedure and tool for sustainable and equitable human development in the SSA region. It prioritizes the active involvement of those with a disadvantage in constructing and enacting solutions for their self-identified issues. As a process, CBR applies a human rights-oriented approach to human development in which addressing disadvantage from any cause with those most directly affected respects their essential worth and dignity as persons or communities. As a tool for human development, CBR has been applied toward enabling the full participation of people with disability and disadvantage across the spectrum of community living supports of health, education, livelihoods, social well-being, and decision empowerment. The more successful of CBR for human development initiatives in the SSA are those supported by national policies, civic community organizations, and with strong local community leadership. CBR remains the most viable instrument for human development support in the SSA region.

A Meta-Theoretical Framework for Counselling People of African Ancestry: An Ecologically Oriented Response to the Special Section Articles

This article is a review of the preceding six articles included in the Special Section related to the subject of counselling people of African ancestry. The major objective was to ascertain whether any recurring themes might be identified, and whether these might contribute to developing a meta-theoretical perspective for counseling people of African ancestry. Two theoretical strands common to the six articles have been identified: (a) the ecological-transactional model and (b) the self-determination theory. A multicultural perspective appears to best characterize effective counseling practice in African settings.

Fostering Self-Determination and Resilience Through Sports Counselling: Psychosocial Development of Youth in Botswana

Sports can promote pro-social behaviors and confidence in physical abilities among participants. We conducted an extensive review of the literature on the ways in which youth in Southern African countries, severely affected by the HIV/AIDS pandemic and other hardships may benefit from acquiring the pro-social skills often associated with athletics. This article reviews the current situation of sports in Botswana and offers recommendations for a culturally appropriate developmental sports counselling program in that country. The authors present arguments that support the development of psychosocial skills, self-determination, and resilience among Batswana Youth through sports counselling interventions.