Browsing by Author "Thwala, Girly"

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    Spiritual healing experiences of rape survivors
    (University of Zululand, 2015) Thwala, Girly; Msomi-Mbele, P.B.; Edwards, S.D.
    The incidence of rape in South Africa is high. A total of 50 481 rape cases were reported in 2010. Rape trauma is exacerbated by the fact that the country has a limited number of professionally trained therapists to attend to survivors. Most survivors end up looking for assistance from their churches, and therefore claim to be healed spiritually. This study was conducted in the Nkangala district of South Africa because of the high incidence of reported rape cases. While it is estimated that one woman is raped in every five minutes in this district, there are only three psychologists employed by the government to attend to a population of 1 020 592. As a result of the scarcity of health care professionals, survivors end up looking for assistance from their churches. South Africa is a country in which spirituality is clearly important. Seventy five percent of the population claim to be Christian and twenty percent claim allegiance to other religions In-depth interviews were conducted with eight female rape survivors between the ages of 18 and 40yrs, who considered themselves to have experienced spiritual healing. Content analysis indicated that spiritual healing approximated psychotherapeutic interventions in the provision of unconditional positive regard, empathy, congregational support and respect. Survivors strongly believed that their healing occurred as a result of prayer, reading Holy Scriptures, church support and spiritual guidance, which gave them strength to forgive perpetrators and move on with their lives.