The dynamics of culture and language amongst English speaking psychologists KwaZulu-Natal
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Date
2013
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University of Zululand
Abstract
The purpose of this presentation is to share some ideas on the continuing challenges facing English speaking psychologists in the province of KwaZulu Natal working inter-racially and how it affects the therapeutic relationship as a whole. A convenient sample of five psychologists was drawn from general and psychiatric hospitals as well as those working in private practice. The target population for this study included White and Indian psychologists. Eight participants were selected for this study. The transcripts of three participants were eventually abandoned due to poor quality of the taped interview. All the participants had experience in working with diverse cultures and people who are speaking isiZulu.
A discourse analytic approach was employed to understand the complicated language phenomenon in sharing sensitive and confidential material. The rationale of the study was to look at the extent to which psychologists from different cultural and diverse language backgrounds make sense of language and cultural diversity in their therapeutic relationship. There were interesting dynamics that came up from the data collected as follows: From the results it was identified that patients are disadvantaged of the psychological services because of the language they do and do not speak. In general, the study found that English speaking psychologists experience serious challenges when they have to conduct psychotherapy and other related activities with non-English speaking patients or clients.
The study found that the issue of working with interpreters continues to be faced with many uncertainties. While the interpretation process is by no means ideal for carrying out psychotherapeutic work, however, it can go a long way in creating access to psychological services. This study has demonstrated that psychotherapy can be implemented successfully through using interpreters, until such time that the system is able to produce psychologists that are adequately proficient in different indigenous languages spoken in South Africa.
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Finally, the researcher hopes that this study will offer suggestions to psychology as a profession and find means to deal with the cultural and language challenges that psychology is faced with in order for psychologists to have efficient psychotherapy and subsequent to that work interracially. It was hoped that the study would play a positive role in increasing psychologist’s sensitivity to issues of racism. Furthermore, it was hoped that the findings of this study would help promote culturally respectful programmes and strategies among psychologists and other health-care professionals in KZN.
Description
Thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of PhD (Community Psychology) in the Department of Psychology at the University of Zululand, South Africa, 2013.
Keywords
Psychologists -- KwaZulu-Natal