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Psychotherapy is a foreign concept to amaXhosa and is fairly new. amaXhosa were using and are still using other methods of healing such as traditional healers or diviners. P8 shared:

…and people had no belief in it [meaning psychotherapy], they expected serious reservation it could ever work. What is that thing psychologist? When there are traditional healers to deal with that, with certain issues that I will be dealing with, but I wanted to give it a try and give the people a try or exposure to psychology.

Suggesstions for Psychotherapy expansions Psycho- education Fear of the law (HPCSA) Western/ reality dichotomy Contrast to Western training Benefits to psychotherapy Psychothera py and other systems

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amaXhosa Psychologists are faced with the dissonance of acting in their tradition or according to their training when dealing with amaXhosa clients. After she was asked a question of whether she would hug a client again, P2 responded:

… I would with so much difficulty actually to stop this child not to hug, it would not be easy for me to stop that. … as much as I’m saying I’m championing boundaries but it’s difficult then for me for somebody who’s showing uBuntu for somebody who’s being grateful who is saying thank you to say to them I will not hug them, I have never said that to anyone that I don’t hug.

Some behaviours or gestures are expected in amaXhosa culture: some amaXhosa do like them but may also do them because they are expected to act in a certain way.

5.5.2 Contrasts to Western training

Psychologists’ professional training does not distinguish between Africans and Europeans, we all get trained in the same class using the same curriculum. Confusion on what to do for the amaXhosa starts to take place when in practice. P4 indicated her experience:

… to that stage whereby I feel like okay there’s a little bit of a blur between me the person and me the therapist, it gets to that level that I am giving my time…I cannot end at this particular point in time, sort of I have to sacrifice my certain time so we can wrap up…

The participant means although the therapeutic hour has lapsed, there are issues that are not clearly explained to the client then the participant uses her time to explain such issues and termination of the session at the expected time becomes impractical in that sense. This is one of the contrasts between African and Eurocentric way of practice in that in the Western way of practice if the therapeutic hour has ended the session stops but in an African way one says what one came to say until one finishes. Another contrast between Western professional training and practicalities in working with amaXhosa clients include going further to assist than what is expected by Western standards. P3 shared:

… But now then it looks like in inverted commas my relationship now is going beyond the four walls that we sit in with the client. Because I think these rules confine us to the four walls, that we do the counselling, you know, in. And also these rules, hey these rules maan, I don’t know I think sometimes they just clash with who we are, how

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do I separate myself, those are my values besides uBuntu I really like, I really like serving people.

This quote highlights the frustrations of psychotherapist feeling restricted to be themselves in servicing clients. In such cases psychotherapists feel torn between themselves and their profession. P4 shared:

… So I think there is a certain level of criss-cross between the elements of uBuntu and ground rules and the framing of therapy because with uBuntu, this feeling that you have, you feel that you cannot be asking people to observe those rules because it feels harsh, it feels impersonal, it feels too formal, so yes that is definitely a criss-cross, surely it is… I will tell you this, having worked as long as I have, I do not know how things are now in terms of current training programs but our training is Western.

This is another frustrating dilemma that amaXhosa psychotherapists are faced with. Western principles seem to be restricting amaXhosa clients from services their people in the way that works for the profession and for the nature of clientele.

amaXhosa psychotherapists seem to be directing most of their frustration as being caused by the governing body, the HPCSA. P7 said:

… I’m coming from the university where I spent a lot of time speaking English to clients, but this was an old woman I had to speak Xhosa and the challenge was hey how do I take the psychology concept into Xhosa, how do I change that psychological concept if I want to explain something to her in Xhosa which I had to think of my own explanation, you know, … they think I am a fixer. …I wish I can do something but in terms of bus fare ha! we would have a problem me and the HPCSA.

P7 means that other challenges that are posed to African psychotherapists include that psychology is taught in English and he then struggled to explain certain psychological concepts to a client that could not speak English. This then is one dilemma. Another dilemma he is referring to is the expectations of umXhosa client leading to a conscious ignoring of HPCSA rules to assist a fellow human being who needs help such as a bus fare. P7 continues:

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It is the same thing uBuntu I was never taught about uBuntu. uBuntu says you must go all out as long that this person is getting what he or she was looking for. I was never taught that what I was taught the frameworks not uBuntu …

This implies that in P7’s university curriculum uBuntu was not part of it, although it is a big part of the participant’s everyday living. An umXhosa trainee psychologist who practised among umXhosa client was rebuked for practising in an amaXhosa way, as P7 shared. This seems as though amaXhosa practitioners are not understood by the health professions governing body and the frustration levels of amaXhosa are escalating. Clients are being serviced and no harm is done while other methods or ways of practice are not endorsed. P3 explained:

… the client therapy relationship it ends here in the practise. And that’s a Western culture really, I don’t know, you know these rules some of them are so Western because what’s wrong with me if I’m going to pass that way because it’s not taking me out of my way, what’s wrong with me not taking it and then in the next session give it to him…

P3 means that part of uBuntu is to assist another human being (for example with a lift) when you can in any way possible, but psychology has discouraged her from doing so with her clients. This poses a dissonance between her way of doing things and her training.

I take it case by case, I mean you just looking at the situation, analysing it, analysing the situation, I’m emphasising that, analysing it and then you sort of like get the wisdom which way to go.

P3 in this case emphasises that she uses her instinct to deal with situations because her university training did not give her proper guidelines on how to deal with those specific situations. This also reflects on some of the dilemmas that are facing amaXhosa

psychotherapists.