Am J Psychother. 1994 Summer; 48(3): 455-67.

Integrating African and Western healing practices in South Africa.

Straker G.

Department of Psychology, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa.

Through a detailed analysis of a dream shared by three adolescent girls suffering from PTSD, this paper has outlined many similarities between an African and a Western understanding of their symptoms. It has shown how both systems would acknowledge these symptoms to be a function of: (a) the breaching of stimulus boundaries; (b) the existence of survivor guilt; (c) the phenomenon of frozen mourning. It has illustrated further how many factors considered to be part of Western psychotherapy, e.g., (a) catharsis following an emotional reliving of the traumatic event; (b) re-ordering of perceptions following insight; (c) fostering hope for the future following a re-establishment of continuity with the past, may be promoted while interpreting dreams within the traditional meanings ascribed to them by an African healing framework. That is, it has been shown how these elements may be fostered while working within the African belief that dreams are not the manifestation of intrapsychic conflict but communications from ancestral spirits concerning interpersonal duties that need to be fulfilled. Finally this paper has illustrated the importance of therapists developing a general appreciation of myths and metaphors.