European Association of Nurses in AIDS Care
8th Annual Conference - AD 2000: Advances in AIDS Care, September 1997
Key points of session: -
Myth, magic and reality: Cultural influences in the healing/therapeutic relationship - Elizabeth Kayiya
Notes taken and webplaced by Ian Hodgson on 22.10.97
- theories regarding care are always embedded in a cultural context: counselling models in the West are largely defined by White Anglo-saxon Protestant (WASP) values
- family structures and belief systems in traditional societies are thus: God/creator; ancient spirit (dead elder), who protects the family from disease, bad luck and misfortune; traditional healer, who communicates with the ancestor in behalf of the family, and consults the family in cases of abnormal illnesses, rituals etc.; family elders, who are responsible for counselling, and delegating duties to....; aunts and uncles, who undertake most of the counselling; family members, who pay respect to elders
- categories of illness: normal/natural (including cough, headache), caused by 'germs', bacteria, bad food; abnormal/unnatural (prolonged and not responsive to treatment), caused by witches, ancestral spirits, enemies, jealous neighbours)
- psychology - according to traditional beliefs, there are no emotional causes of illness, and many aspects of Africa's 'personality' is incompatible with Western psychology and therapy - eg.: in Africa, the client is passive in relation to the healer, who has supernatural powers; cause of disease is in the spritual world, and external to the patient; there is a taboo against discussing family issues with other than kin
- comparative analysis: dreams used by both cultures; power is shared in the West, though is focussed on the healer in Africa; individual autonomy is encouraged in the West, group identity and respect for 'elders' sought in Africa; therapy in the West is non-directive, in Africa is directive; in the West, the clientele engage in introjection, in Africa there is projection