Psychotherapy Training In Africa South Of Sahara

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Abstract

The scarcity of properly trained psychotherapists in Africa south of Sahara on the one
hand, and the increasing incidence of emotional problems resulting from poverty and
underdevelopment, child abuse and neglect, trauma resulting from different forms of
crime and abuse of human dignity, insecurity problems like terrorism, insurgency,
kidnapping and hijacking, increasing stress-provoking lifestyles, tribal and national wars
and conflicts, westernization and globalisation, and the HIV/AIDS pandemic, different
forms of cancer, and all sorts of abuse of human dignity on the other hand, call for
urgent need for establishment of institutions for formal psychotherapy training in Africa.
This paper highlights not only the above lacuna but also describes the important aspects
of psychotherapy training in the Western world. It went further to describe current efforts
being made (with Nigeria as an example) to establish a world-class tertiary institution,
the School of Psychotherapy and Health Sciences (SPHS), which takes it lead from
modern psychotherapy training programmes in Austria. The SPHS in Nigeria is affiliated
to Sigmund Freud University, Vienna, Austria. Students from SPHS are trained by
qualified staff from Nigeria and from Austria, and they are properly equipped with
psychotherapeutic skills that will enable them to address the emotional problems of
Africans, in which ever work-setting they find themselves. They are also registerable with
the World Council for Psychotherapy and with other psychotherapy organisations worldwide.

 

Description

Prof. Sylvester Ntomchukwu Madu (D.Sc. Psych., Innsbruck)
Department of Psychology,
Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu University, Nigeria.
madusylvester@yahoo.com.

 

 

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