Three perspectives on ukuthwasa: the view from traditional beliefs, western psychiatry and transpersonal psychology
- Authors: Booi, Beauty Ntombizanele
- Date: 2005
- Subjects: Healers -- South Africa , Divination -- South Africa , Schizophrenia -- Social aspects , Xhosa (African people) -- Psychology , Xhosa (African people) -- Social life and customs
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2936 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002445 , Healers -- South Africa , Divination -- South Africa , Schizophrenia -- Social aspects , Xhosa (African people) -- Psychology , Xhosa (African people) -- Social life and customs
- Description: Among the Xhosas, the healing sickness called intwaso is interptreted as a call by the ancestors to become a healer. Transpersonalists also see these initiatory illnesses as spiritual crises, while according to the widely accepted Western psychiatric view, illness is purely perceived in physical and psychological terms. A case study was conducted where a single participant who has undergone the process of ukuthwasa and is functioning as a traditional healer was interviewed. A series of interviews were done where information was gathered about significant experiences related to ukuthwasa process. Tapes were transcribed and a case narrative was written and interpreted using the traditional Xhosa beliefs, the western psychiatric and the transpersonal psychology perspectives. Strengths and weaknesses of each perspective were then examined.
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- Date Issued: 2005
A comparative Rorschach study of some responses of Schizophrenic and non-Schizophrenic Nguni female subjects
- Authors: Melane, Nompumelelo Popana
- Date: 1976
- Subjects: Rorschach Test , Schizophrenia -- Social aspects , Schizophrenia -- Treatment , Psychoanalysis -- Social aspects , Nguni (African people) -- Psychology , Women -- Mental health
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:3216 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1012873
- Description: Observation of the frequency with which major decisions on issues affecting psychiatric patients were decided on material elicited from techniques like the Rorschach stimulated the investigation of the applicability of this technique to African patients. The nosological group chosen for this study was the schizophrenic group. Scrutiny into the literature revealed great diversity in conceptions of the etiology of the schizophrenic condition. To handle this material it was necessary to adopt a modification of the framework used in Friedman and Kaplan (1974). Having gone into the models on etiology it was evident that consistency was only possible in the realm of symptoms and diagnosis and the definition of schizophrenia as a group of psychotic disorders characterised by gross distortions of reality : the disorganisation and fragmentation of perception, thought and emotion and withdrawal from social interaction, was adopted. With this preconceived idea of schizophrenia three hypotheses were formulated to test the diagnostic utility of the Rorschach with Nguni schizophrenic female subjects. Summary, p. 104.
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- Date Issued: 1976