South African Journal of Psychology - latest Issue

It would be difficult for most of us to think outside of the reality of a constitutional democracy that we now indelibly enjoy in South Africa (SA). Many of us are firmly rooted in the present, looking forward to a better future, without being haunted by the nightmares of the past. Our resilience as human beings and our very physiology enables us to look forward, without constantly looking backwards. Understandably then, we tend not to focus on the conflict, the pain, the angst, and the sheer scale of the dulling of sensibilities that consumed us in our past miasma. Perhaps too, the vast majority who were direct victims of our terrible legacy have quite graciously stepped aside, allowing the rest of us to reap the fruits of our liberal democratic constitutional democracy, with scarcely a care about that ever-present but largely invisible majority who, almost daily, confront exclusion, impoverishment, disability, hunger, psychic dislocation, helplessness, and hopelessness, reinforcing our own growing distance, hostility, blame, entitlement . . .

When I was first approached to provide my recollections of the launch of Psychological Society of South Africa (PsySSA) at the University of the Western Cape in 1994, I immediately knew that this seemingly simple request was likely to exact greater demands on me than what was immediately perceptible. Not only was I being asked to recall events of some 25 years ago, but as a memory studies scholar in part (see, for example, Stevens, Duncan, & Hook, 2013), I was also acutely aware that writing a reflective account of a historical event that draws on personal memory is always a tricky enterprise, most notably because memory is a fickle friend of truth. Under these circumstances, memory is patchy, unreliable, interspersed with confabulations, and runs the risk of oblique idealization or perspectival deprecation because it is being crafted, constructed, and knitted together through the lens of the present. Attempting to re-create and re-inhabit such a moment invariably incorporates both objective and factually corroborated information, alongside personal reconstructed memories, but the instant that one places the “the private on display, the clear distinction between honesty, dishonesty, revelation and dissimulation, dissolves” (Cohen, in Manganyi, 2016, p. xv).

My involvement with Psychological Society of South Africa (PsySSA) dates back to 1996 when I attended what I believe was its second national congress at Wits University. I was still a very young academic who had just returned to my post as a lecturer at the University of Venda, after spending 2 years of my study leave at the University of Cape Town where I had gone to pursue a PhD in psychology. This was the first truly national psychology conference that I attended. I presented a paper that focused on the notion of African personality. Although the paper was well received, I remember the vibrant debate that my presentation generated, with some in the audience challenging my assertion about an African way of being-in-the-world. I am mentioning this because when I look back, I see that PsySSA has for a long time provided a platform for some of us to raise critical issues pertaining to the relevance of psychology in (South) Africa.

In a confluence of circumstances, I joined Psychological Society of South Africa (PsySSA) some years ago on a relatively permanent basis after belonging to its various incarnations intermittently. PsySSA was host to the International Congress of Psychology (ICP) in 2012 which in itself was an extremely significant event for psychology in South Africa. I was invited to become part of the scientific committee for ICP a few years before the event, and my experience henceforth with the Society was enriching and made a positive difference in my career and experience of professional and academic psychology. The importance of the Society dawned on me when I realised that PsySSA is the perfect vehicle for collaboration between academics in psychology and colleagues from the profession of psychology.

Did I ever imagine, as a Psychology graduate student in the 1970s that someday I could be a part of organised Psychology in South Africa, or that students of colour could ever hope to one day feature in the ranks of academia outside of the ‘bush colleges’ that we were forced to attend if we desired a university education? The idea of progressing to the point of contributing to the profession and the broader science in a meaningful way seemed even more remote. That apartheid cut so seriously into the human spirit and caused such deep disturbance of thought and self-confidence seems to miss the minds of many today who are still unable to see why one cannot ‘just get over it’.

The use of race in research is always problematic as it is loaded with dangers and unforeseeable consequences. Where race (or ethnicity interpreted as colour-based) is used as a variable or an ‘explanation’, politically constructed racial categories are reproduced, thereby perpetuating stigma, discrimination, and racism. It was precisely this use of race that was exemplified in the recent publication, and subsequent retraction, of an article by Nieuwoudt, Dickie, Coetsee, Engelbrecht, and Terblanche (2019), titled, ‘Age- and education-related effects on cognitive functioning in Colored South African women’, as published in the journal Aging, Neuropsychology, and Cognition: A Journal on Normal and Dysfunctional Development.

The Sexuality and Gender Division (SGD) of the Psychological Society of South Africa (PsySSA) is utterly dismayed by the outcome of Caster Semenya’s1 court challenge against The International Association of Athletics Federation (IAAF)’s testosterone rule. This proposed rule is to set a limit on female athletes’ testosterone levels in certain track events. Although gender verification technologies have revealed that diversity exists beyond the binary female–male construction, the court ruled in IAAF’s favour and thus, in essence, enables IAAF to police people’s natural bodies. Scientific findings indicate that sex diversity is not only related to hormonal conditions, but that a broad diversity also exists anatomically and biologically. Difference of Sex Development (DSD)2 is not an illness but is a natural occurrence in humankind. PsySSA sees this court ruling as a human rights violation, as this type of discrimination can not only lead to marginalisation (as already seen in this case) but also to potential physical harm, as Caster Semenya will now need to medicate herself to lower her testosterone levels in order to compete.

In this article, we outline the practice guidelines for psychology professionals working with sexually and gender-diverse people, ratified by the Psychological Society of South Africa’s Council in 2017. The guidelines are an augmentation of the Psychological Society of South Africa’s position statement of 2013 providing a framework for understanding the challenges that sexually and gender-diverse people face in patriarchal and hetero- and cis-normative societies. An affirmative stance towards sexual and gender diversity enables psychology practitioners to work ethically, effectively, and sensitively in this field. The guidelines – a first for Africa – are aspirational in nature and call on psychology professionals to become aware of their own biases, conscientise themselves of the best practices in the field by continued professional development, and to utilise the guidelines as a resource in their related work. Brief mention is made of the development process, before the rationale and possible applications of the 12 guidelines are explored.

In this article, I argue that an ecological systems approach to resilience – specifically, one that is sensitive to how contextual determinants shape successful adaptation differentially – offers a meaningful way to enable sub-Saharan adolescents to adapt well to the apparently intractable risks to their health and well-being. Accordingly, I draw on studies of child and adolescent resilience from sub-Saharan Africa and the global North to show that the resilience field has largely moved beyond individual-focused theories of resilience that have the (long-term) potential to jeopardize adolescent health and well-being and advance neoliberal agendas. I emphasize that the recent attention to differentially impactful resilience-enablers casts suspicion on incautious application of universally recurring resilience-enablers. Allied to this, I problematize the delay in the identification of resources that impact the resilience of sub-Saharan adolescents differentially. Finally, I distil implications for resilience-directed praxis and research that have the potential to advance the championship of adolescent resilience in sub-Saharan Africa.

The burgeoning increase in Internet access and use in South Africa and globally has opened a new doorway for provision of mental health services online. This descriptive study focuses specifically on psychotherapeutic services provided by South African psychologists. Draft guidelines for online therapy were developed and a sample of South African registered psychologists was asked to review, rate, and comment on the draft guidelines via an online survey. The sample also identified key ethical dilemmas arising from the novel use of this modality in South Africa. The draft guidelines were positively appraised by the majority of participants supporting the value of such guidelines in South Africa. Key ethical dilemmas identified included confidentiality, competence, boundaries, technological limitations, emergency situations, nature of therapeutic process, security of records, payment, and verification of identity.

Globally, childhood sexual abuse is a public health problem that affects millions of people. Few studies have considered its long-term ramifications, especially among young adults in developing countries. This study assessed the influence of childhood sexual abuse on depression and behaviours in young adults. Data were obtained from 362 students enrolled at a university in Botswana (Age: M = 21.40, standard deviation = 2.48) using the Childhood Sexual Abuse Scale, the 21-item Beck’s Depression Inventory–II, Revised Sociosexual Orientation Inventory, and Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT). The t test and chi-square test of independence were used to assess subgroup differences and regression analyses were used to assess the extent to which childhood sexual abuse predicted depression and risky behaviours. About 25% (n = 90) reported childhood sexual abuse, 18% reported harmful alcohol use (n = 66, 18.2%), 7.82% (n = 28) reported severe depression, and 24% (n = 101) reported failure to use contraceptives. Childhood sexual abuse significantly predicted depression and all the behavioural outcomes in the study. The effect sizes of the associations between childhood sexual abuse on the one hand and mental health and behavioural outcomes on the other were modest. Consequently, the current study is a precursor to further studies on the long-term outcomes of childhood sexual abuse in Botswana. Consequently, a history of childhood sexual abuse should be considered in planning interventions to mitigate depression and behavioural problems on university campuses.

Decreased quality of life is a major challenge among women living with breast cancer due to treatment effects and other psychosocial comorbidities. However, shared decision making and doctor–patient relationship have been linked to improved quality of life, but the mechanism linking shared decision making and quality of life is poorly understood. This study therefore examined both the direct and indirect influences of shared decision making on quality of life through doctor–patient relationship among 205 women living with breast cancer in Ghana with a mean age of 52.49 years. Using a cross-sectional design, participants were administered questionnaires which measured quality of life, doctor–patient relationship, and shared decision making. Results showed that shared decision making had significant indirect influence on overall quality of life via doctor–patient relationships (b = 4.69, 95% confidence interval = [0.006, 9.555]). Shared decision making had a significant effect on doctor–patient relationships (b = 7.63, t = 6.76, p < .001) but no significant direct effect on quality of life (b = 2.72, t = 0.510, p = .61). Findings suggest that shared decision making results in improved doctor–patient relationships which probably lead to better quality of life among women living with breast cancer. These findings underscore the need for increased patient involvement in medical decisions to improve interpersonal relationships and consequently quality of life.

The empirically designed English Comprehension Test was initially developed as a means of assessing individual’s English comprehension skills. The test development of the English Comprehension Test led to the piloting of two test versions of the English Comprehension Test, namely, version 1.2 and version 1.3. The purpose of this study was to statistically explore the factors emerging from the two test versions of the English Comprehension Test. This study is the initial step towards establishing the construct validity, which forms part of the validation of the English Comprehension Test. This quantitative study involved an exploratory inspection of the factors of the English Comprehension Test, with the use of factor analyses. It also employed two factor extraction methods (Principal Component Analysis and Principal Axis Factoring) for comparison. These two factor extraction methods used for the exploratory factor analyses revealed a dominant factor for both test versions of the English Comprehension Test, thereby endorsing an argument for unidimensionality of the English Comprehension Test. The similarities between the results for the two test versions confirmed the existence of an inherent structure for the English Comprehension Test, despite the differences between the two test versions. The labelling of the factors of the test also suggests that the English Comprehension Test could be an assessment of cognitive (verbal) aptitude. A major limitation of this study is the restriction of range and lack of generalizability. The contribution made by this study will enhance psychometric validation studies in South Africa as well as increasing literature on South African test construction for multicultural and multilingual individuals.

Inadequate investment in mental health care by the governments of both high- and low-income countries contributes to recurrent challenges of uneven distribution of and access to mental health services between urban and non-urban communities. While recent research has acknowledged the role of mental health in well-being and the cost of failure to invest in the sector, prioritising mental health to the same degree as physical health remains a challenge. This article highlights the unequal distribution of mental health services, and psychological services in particular, in KwaZulu-Natal. This is achieved by considering the background of psychology in South Africa and KwaZulu-Natal and then examining the ratio of clinical psychologists to the KwaZulu-Natal population. Furthermore, the article explores the geographical distribution of psychological services in KwaZulu-Natal and concludes with a discussion of the impact of uneven mental health service distribution on service provision and utilisation in non-urban areas of KwaZulu-Natal.

Research largely supports the apology–forgiveness cycle, a process in which perpetrators’ posttransgression apologies are reciprocated with victims’ forgiveness. This cycle is often facilitated by the mere provision of an apology. Yet, there are times in which apologies may be rejected. We hypothesised that when apologies matched victims’ apology preferences (i.e., congruent apologies), victims would be more likely to accept them and self-report higher levels of forgiveness. Using an autobiographical transgression-recall approach, participants (n = 102) provided self-report ratings on the apology they preferred receiving, the severity of the transgression, the type of apology they actually received from perpetrators, whether or not they accepted the apology offered to them, and forgiveness. Victims were more likely to accept apologies and report higher levels of forgiveness when perpetrators offered apologies that were congruent with victims’ preferred apologies, particularly apologies that met victims’ needs for empathy. The findings not only provide support for the apology–forgiveness cycle but also signify the importance of delivering apologies that meet the psychological needs of victims.

Although substantial attention has been given to doctoral students, the attention given to master’s students writing dissertations is limited. This article outlines a transactional model of stress that conceptualises dissertation writing as a stressor consisting of a series of phases that tend to increase the risk of negative outcomes. A mixed-method design was used to address the aim of the study. An adapted version of the Stress and Support Questionnaire for University Students was used to measure the stress that master’s students experienced. Open-ended questions were employed to measure students’ evaluations of the stress experienced when writing a dissertation. The model proposed that the phases of dissertation writing moderate the relationship between stressor factors and the stress experienced. In an empirical study making use of the model, the moderation analyses revealed that Phase 1 of dissertation writing significantly moderated the relationship between the stress experienced, stressor factors of relationships, financial and transport problems and health related problems. The qualitative data suggested that stress is evaluated either positively or negatively depending on time-management styles and support systems. The results obtained underscore the importance of support structures in alleviating the stress experienced when writing dissertations in order to improve students’ retention and graduation rates.

Suicidality is a growing mental health problem, with statistics for South Africa being in line with global estimates. There has, however, been relatively little empirical advancement in the conceptualization of suicidal behaviour in recent years. Joiner’s interpersonal-psychological theory of suicidal behaviour is a relatively new theory that appears to hold promise for advancing our understanding of the mechanisms that underlie suicidal behaviour. The theory proposes that people die by suicide because they want to and because they can. This study sought to test two key hypotheses of the interpersonal-psychological theory of suicidal behaviour using a cross-sectional design and a sample of 239 mental health outpatients. Consistent with theoretical predictions, levels of suicidal ideation were significantly predicted by the interactive effects of high levels of thwarted belongingness and perceived burdensomeness in the presence of high levels of hopelessness in relation to both of these distressing states; with estimates of risk for suicide being most strongly predicted by the interactive effects of suicide ideation and an acquired capability for suicide. These findings are discussed in terms of their implications for theory, practice, and future research.

The first year of university creates new experiences and challenges for first years and lays the foundation for the subsequent years of study. This first year has implications for academic development, mental health, and well-being of students and subsequently student retention. The majority of South African university students stay within their familial home unlike their international counterparts. The family may therefore play a contributory role in adjustment to university but this role is somewhat unclear. The current study therefore aimed to establish the associations between university adjustments of first year students, family structure, and parenting. The study employed a cross-sectional design, with a sample of 556 first year undergraduate students at a South African university. The data were collected using an electronic selfadministered questionnaire on a secure online platform using the Perceived Parental Autonomy Support Scale and the College Adaptation Questionnaire. Data analysis included hierarchical regression analyses and one-way analyses of variance to determine and compare the relationships between the variables. The results suggest that students from two-parent families were more adjusted than those from one-parent families. Autonomy-supportive parenting predicted positive university adjustment for the total sample, but only maternal autonomy-supportive parenting predicted good adjustment for students in two-parent families. This study highlights the potential role parents and families may play in the adjustment of first year students to university. This is particularly relevant in South Africa where many students are first-generation students, are challenged in transitioning to university, and this may have subsequent mental health–related challenges.