Spiritual healing experiences of rape survivors

dc.contributor.advisorMsomi-Mbele, P.B.
dc.contributor.advisorEdwards, S.D.
dc.contributor.authorThwala, Girly
dc.date.accessioned2016-07-12T06:52:49Z
dc.date.available2016-07-12T06:52:49Z
dc.date.issued2015
dc.descriptionA thesis submitted to the Faculty of Arts in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor in Community Psychology in the Department of Psychology at the University Of Zululand, South Africa, 2015en_US
dc.description.abstractThe 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.en_US
dc.description.sponsorshipDepartment of Health Mpumalanga Provinceen_US
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10530/1474
dc.publisherUniversity of Zululanden_US
dc.subjectspiritual healing --rape survivors --community psychology --South Africaen_US
dc.titleSpiritual healing experiences of rape survivorsen_US
dc.typeThesisen_US
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