The struggle for mental health in South Africa: psychologists, apartheid and the story of Durban OASSSA
✍ Scribed by Grahame Hayes
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 2000
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 96 KB
- Volume
- 10
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 1052-9284
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
The article provides a critical account of the way in which a group of South African psy! chologists and other mental health workers sought to use their professions as instruments of resistance to apartheid[ Through recounting the history of the Durban branch of the Organ! isation for Appropriate Social Services in South Africa "OASSSA#\ a progressive anti!apartheid {{social service|| organisation\ the aims of the paper are two!fold] _rstly\ to suggest some of the ways in which the practice of this broad!based mental health and social service organisation challenged mainstream psychological thinking and began to develop some progressive psycho! logical practices within the conditions of apartheid repression and violence^and secondly\ to note some of the di.culties and contradictions that arose in OASSSA|s work with working class communities\ given that the organisation|s membership was largely made up of middle! class academics and professionals[ The paper concludes with a critical discussion of the extent to which the group succeeded in achieving its goals of "i# service delivery\ "ii# the political mobilisation of psychologists\ and "iii# the challenging and critical rede_nition of the terrain of psychological practice in South Africa [ Copyright Þ 1999