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PRESIDENT'S CORNER
Hearty greetings to you all! I really would like to start by congratulating PsySSA for achieving an objective set eight years ago - the recognition of diversity. This cannot be demonstrated better than by having a Black woman as President. This has really touched me. In my inauguration speech I pledged that I will, during my term of office, show the greatest commitment to the sustenance of this objective - especially as diversity has been recognised by experts in human dynamics as important for experiential pace setting and role modelling towards the successful transformation greatly needed by our country.
My greatest passion, and thus my vision for the Society, is to see Psychology in South Africa grow. The extend of our deliberations on numerous issues over the past eight years in our newsletter, workshops, seminars and congress debates is proof of the richness of our diverse, high quality and scholarly interests.
Psychology being a science about human behaviour cannot overlook focussing on the cultural beliefs, values and meanings which clients bring into interactions with Psychologists. These cannot be ignored if any success is envisaged in such interactions. The multicultural web-sites show just how far Psychologists in other countries have gone in their inclusion of diversity for psychological interventions. Available literature originates from the USA , describing diversity issues among Hispanics, Asians and Black Americans etc. This creates a great concern for me as a South African to have all our deliberations based mainly on theories developed on these groups that are presented in the available literature. Admittedly a lot of similarities do occur, although some terms are quite contradictory to South Africans, such as the usage of terms like ‘minority’ and ‘majority’. These terms mean different groups for South Africa and the USA ; and books need to be written to bring out these kind of differences. There are a lot of issues that we as South Africans would address differently and such books would not need any form of translation from other situations. We need our direct exposition of our kind of diversity and how it impacts on psychological intervention. I still do not believe that someone from outside can tell us how to approach Afrikaans, Sotho, Tsonga, Zulu, or Venda speaking clients better that we can do. We are also stuck with assessment tools that have foreign norms for our clients and we have to work with these until we can as a group of psychologists rigorously start to address this from different areas of expertise.
During my term of office I envisage calling on all the Psychologists to bring on board within their diverse areas of specialisation the concept of multiculturalism. I am aware that multiculturalism is sometimes confused with race and colour. However, let us embrace multiculturalism as defined beyond these two aspects and use it in the way psychology should be about.
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I would like to call for a collective indulgence into this approach to our psychological interventions. This approach cuts across all sections of psychology and it should be possible to find its applicability in all areas of our expertise. Colleagues, let us engage in this, and make it our theme for the year. We have in mind a huge multicultural congress organised towards September with a view to bringing South African psychologists’ participation to make such endeavours possible. I do not think anyone outside South Africa can very well articulate South African diversity more than us. Dear Colleagues, get on board for this Society’s national endeavour and in your own way make a contribution towards making psychology relevant for the South Africans. The APA has already forged ahead on these issues and I am happy to provide the APA task force document on the issue of multiculturalism or a website address, so that, we can, where possible, engage in more debate on this issue. PsyTalk is your newsletter and such debates can really be appreciated so that we can share our understanding of issues.
I would like to invite you all to your great Society. You have grown over the years with it and do not hesitate to approach the Office with new innovations. I would like to have an open door policy, because PsySSA is yours, and all of us make PsySSA. The Executive and the Office are there to facilitate your daily activities and that makes talks such as ‘you there as PsySSA and us here,’ a misnomer.
I would like to once more heartily welcome you all to the 2002/2003 PsySSA term. I hope you will all find the year fulfilling especially with all the new things psychology has to start working on. Early in the new year the President of the Norwegian Psychological Society and her entourage will be in the country and people in the cities that will be visited by this group will be invited to attend a seminar.
You should all have well-deserved rest over the festive season and come back ready to embark on your different specialities. Our breakfast schedule will be announced early in the year and please start to plan rigorously for your division and regions. Do not forget that we also have an award for the most active division and region. Hope yours will be next.
Best Wishes for the coming 2003!
Dr Teresa-Anne Mashego
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