Building a Unified, Relevant, and Responsive Psychology
The Division has in store a number of significant events and items to note for your attention, along with a highlight of one of our African scholars. Find the latest member newsletter here.
On World Schizophrenia Awareness Day, PsySSA shares contributions from AID and DPD, reflecting on the realities, complexities, and human experiences surrounding schizophrenia and psychosis.
Schizophrenia is one of the world’s most misunderstood mental health conditions, yet many people living with schizophrenia lead meaningful lives when supported through accessible, compassionate, and person-centred care. These contributions call for greater awareness, reduced stigma, and more humane and culturally responsive approaches to mental healthcare.
The contributions also explore the evolving relationship between technology and mental health, including both the promise and potential risks of artificial intelligence in understanding, identifying, and supporting schizophrenia-related care.
As we commemorate this day, we are reminded that awareness is not only about increasing knowledge – it is about listening, dignity, justice, and ensuring that individuals experiencing psychosis are met with empathy rather than fear or exclusion.
By the PsySSA AI Division
You have probably heard the phrase “AI hallucination”, to refer to when a chatbot confidently makes something up. It has become one of the most common criticisms of artificial intelligence. But here is something worth pausing on: we borrowed that word from psychiatry. Hallucinations are a real and often devastating symptom of schizophrenia, along with delusions (fixed false beliefs), disorganised thinking, and a withdrawal from daily life that can feel almost impossible to bridge.
The fact that we use the same word for both AI’s outputs and a person’s lived experience is more than a quirk of language. It opens a conversation this World Schizophrenia Awareness Day that is worth having: What is the relationship between artificial intelligence and schizophrenia? Where does AI genuinely help? And where might it quietly make things worse?
PSYSSA DECOLONISING PSYCHOLOGY DIVISION
Today we invite reflection, on how we as both a society and professional community understand, speak about and respond to those affected by both psychosis and schizophrenia.
Schizophrenia is a serious mental health condition that affects how a person may experience reality, think, feel, and relate to others. It can include experiences such as hearing voices, unusual beliefs, changes in perception, difficulties with motivation, concentration, or emotional expression. Experiences vary widely from person to person, and many people living with schizophrenia lead meaningful lives with appropriate support and care.
Globally, schizophrenia affects an estimated 24 million people. This translates roughly to 1 in 300 people worldwide. Approximately 1% of South Africa’s population is estimated to be affected by schizophrenia, which is thought to be consistent global averages. Considering its relatively low prevalence, the condition places significant burden on the country’s public healthcare system which struggles with the resourcing to adequately address and support diagnoses.
On International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia, and Transphobia, PsySSA joins the global community in affirming the dignity, rights, safety, and humanity of LGBTQIA+ people.
Contributions from PsySSA’s Decolonising Psychology Division (DPD) and Sexuality and Gender Division (SGD) reflect on the ongoing realities of homophobia, biphobia, transphobia, gender-based violence, discrimination, and the harmful impact of exclusionary systems and practices. They also call for collective action to strengthen advocacy, mental healthcare access, legal protections, and affirming psychosocial support for LGBTQIA+ individuals across South Africa and the African continent.
PsySSA reaffirms its commitment to ethical, evidence-based, and affirming psychological practice that promotes dignity, freedom of expression, and the right of all people not only to survive, but to thrive.
South Africa, as an active member of the international community, has a responsibility “to advance our constitutional values beyond our borders,” said President Cyril Ramaphosa at the 4th meeting of the ‘In Defence of Democracy’ initiative in Barcelona, Spain, on 18 April.
While there has been pushback against our Constitution within our borders, there is, arguably, still sufficient consensus that constitutional values are the backbone of our democracy. These include: the rule of law; an independent judiciary; protection of fundamental freedoms (such as association, speech and movement); equal opportunity and justice; political participation; accountability and transparency; and the protection of minorities. In summary, a true democracy ensures that freedom is not just a gift from government, but a protected right (as illustrated by the South African Bill of Rights).
What has this got to do with IDAHOBIT, the International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia, celebrated every year on 17 May? This year’s theme ‘At the heart of democracy’ is a reminder that truly democratic societies must be grounded in justice and freedom for everyone. And ‘everyone’ includes members of our LGBTQIA+ communities, who, along with everyone else who resides in South Africa, have the right not just to exist, but to thrive.
One aspect of thriving is being able to express and fulfil one’s highest and most actualised self, living out the potential in all of us to find love and work, live a decent and dignified life, and participate in community and political spaces. To thrive one must be valued from a young age, nurtured, protected, loved and celebrated.
As the Sexuality and Gender Division of PsySSA, we therefore call for ‘conversion practices’ (attempts to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender) to be outlawed, not only in South Africa, but in the rest of Africa too. With Outright International, we have produced a Toolkit for Mental Health Providers working with Survivors of Conversion Practices in Africa, based on research conducted by Outright. This research has shown the devastating effects of conversion practices, often causing lasting psychological, social, spiritual and physical harms, impeding thriving. Noteworthy is that these practices are often imposed on vulnerable young people.
If South Africa is to truly be a ‘defender of democracy’ beyond its borders, this must start at home. While existing law could assist survivors of conversion practices, it does not go far enough to prevent these practices and the harms they cause. Our president, if he started a process of banning conversion practices, would send a powerful message to the whole African continent, that constitutional values of equality, fairness, dignity and freedom are not just words on paper, but vehicles for legal and social change. At the ‘heart of democracy’ is the freedom of all Africans to thrive, not just survive, the attempts to change, crush and distort their sexuality or gender. This IDAHOBIT celebration should be a call for activism which ends dehumanising conversion practices, once and for all.
Author
Pierre Brouard, Clinical Psychologist, Executive Member, Sexuality and Gender Division, PsySSA; Research Associate, Centre for Sexualities, AIDS and Gender, UP; and Extraordinary Lecturer, Centre for Human Rights, UP.
The 17th of May marks International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia, And Transphobia (IDAHOBIT). The day draws its significance from the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) decision to remove homosexuality from the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD) by declassifying it as a mental disorder in 1990. This marked a shift in collective humanity and freedom.
IDAHOBIT, in 2026, is celebrated under the theme, “At the heart of democracy.” This theme symbolizes the centrality of the role of democracy in mental health advocacy, freedom of expression, and the fundamental right to life for everyone. It comes at a time when the rights of LGBTQIA+ people face significant threats from governments, groups, and individuals. Recently, this has been worsened by the termination of the United States Presidential Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in South Africa. The termination of PEPFAR has reduced access to healthcare services such as HIV prevention and management, including Pre-exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) and Post-exposure Prophylaxis (PEP), as well as gender-affirming care.
While South Africa leads as one of the African countries with the most progressive legislation regarding the LGBTQIA+ community, homosexuality remains criminalised in much of the continent. Despite South Africa’s milestones in recognising LGBTQIA+ rights, including the Civil Union Act of 2006, gender-based violence persists in daily life. Horrific cases of corrective rape, among other forms of violence and homicide, target members of the LGBTQIA+ community. Each unresolved incident undermines the rights of LGBTQIA+ people and highlights the ongoing failures of the criminal justice system.
Whilst the psychology profession in South Africa has been at the forefront of advocacy against homophobia, biphobia, and transphobia, as demonstrated by essential guiding manuals such as PsySSA’s Practice Guidelines for Psychology Professionals Working with Sexually and Gender-Diverse People (2025), which seek to ensure gender discrimination does not take place within the profession and beyond, there remains a lot of work that is to be done to address the way in which gender justice remains largely inaccessible in society at large.
What remains a key issue is how healthcare and criminal justice institutions continue to adhere to colonial gender frameworks, which further undermine gender justice, especially in remote and disadvantaged areas. As an essential part of decolonising psychology, we therefore call psychologists in clinical, educational, research, and industrial fields to move beyond the professional setting.
There is a need to collaborate with activist organisations that bring to life the principles of gender equality, freedom of expression, and an ethics of care outlined in the guiding manual.
Resources:
https://www.psyssa.com/practice-guidelines-for-psychology-professionals-working-with-sexually-and-gender-diverse-people-2nd-ed/
https://anovahealth.co.za/our-work/key-populations/
https://www.samesamecollective.org/
Today, PsySSA joins the global community in commemorating World Bipolar Day under the theme “Bipolar Strong.”
Living with bipolar disorder is not a weakness – it is a journey of resilience, courage, and ongoing navigation of complex emotional, cognitive, and social realities. While often misunderstood as simple “mood swings,” bipolar disorder is a serious condition involving profound shifts in energy, sleep, and emotional regulation that can deeply affect daily life.
This year, contributions from PsySSA’s Health Psychology Division (HPD) and Decolonising Psychology Division (DPD) invite us to deepen how we think about mental health.
This World Bipolar Day, we call on all sectors of society to:
- Challenge stigma
- Strengthen systems of care
- Centre lived experiences
- Advance equitable and accessible mental health support
This reflection explores bipolar disorder through a decolonial lens, inviting a broader understanding of mental health that recognises the social conditions, relationships, and structural realities shaping people’s lives. It encourages compassionate awareness while highlighting the importance of dignity, justice, and community care in supporting those living with bipolar disorder.
Today we commemorate World Bipolar Day under the theme: “BIPOLAR STRONG”
World Bipolar Day is a reminder that living with bipolar disorder is not a weakness, but a journey of resilience, strength, and courage. The theme ‘Bipolar Strong’ celebrates individuals who navigate the highs and lows while continuing to lead meaningful lives, challenge stigma, and advocate for better mental health support.
Every journey with bipolar disorder is different, shaped by personal, social, and structural factors. To transform mental health care, we must look beyond the diagnosis and see the person before the patient.
Here in South Africa, research continues to strengthen our understanding of bipolar disorder care by linking policy, clinical practice, and patient realities. They highlight the importance of effective medication management, multidisciplinary support, familial support, and national treatment guidelines in shaping care and realities for those living with bipolar disorder:
This World Bipolar Day, let us stand in solidarity, challenge stigma, and support those living with bipolar disorder.
Together, we are #BipolarStrong
She sat on the clinic chair with her shoulders folded inward, as if trying to shrink from the world that had suddenly become too loud, too cruel, too invasive. “I didn’t think it would follow me home,” she whispered. “But it’s on Facebook… on TikTok… even my little cousin saw it.”
She is nineteen. Her story is one I have heard too many times in different variations the trusting conversation, the shared photo, the quiet belief that intimacy will remain intimate. But in a matter of hours, her private world became public property. Her images were stolen, edited, mocked, and circulated by strangers who would never know her name yet felt entitled to her body, her dignity, and her pain.
There were no bruises to show the nurses. There was no fracture in the X-ray machine. But her world had collapsed. Her mother said she barely left her room. She said she barely slept. She said she no longer recognised her daughter’s voice.
This is the new face of violence in South Africa: silent, borderless, and devastating.
Our country has long been haunted by the shadow of gender-based violence. Statistics South Africa (2024) confirms that one in three women will experience physical or sexual violence, a number that reflects only those who managed to speak. But the terrain has shifted. Violence now slips into digital spaces, where the assault is repeated every time someone views, shares, downloads, or laughs. In this new frontier, harm does not end when the perpetrator walks away; it lingers, replayed endlessly in the survivor’s mind.
Amnesty International (2023) notes that nearly 40% of South African women have experienced online harassment. Behind that number are real lives: the Grade 12 learner bullied by classmates after her private messages were leaked; the young professional whose career stalled when intimate images were weaponised against her; the village girl whose family shamed her instead of supporting her. Digital violence strips away safety, identity, and belonging and the psychological wounds are often deeper than what we see in therapy rooms.
As psychologists, we need to recognise that digital violence is not about technology alone. It is born from old patterns of power, gendered, cultural, and historical that have simply moved into modern spaces. A decolonial perspective reminds us that Black women, especially, carry layered vulnerabilities. Their bodies have long been sites of exploitation and scrutiny, and the digital world merely amplifies those inherited injustices.
Responding to this requires more than therapy. It requires compassion, community, and the courage to confront the systems that enable this harm. It demands that we listen without judgment, validate without hesitation, and support without condition.
To every woman and girl who has endured this unseen assault: your pain is real. Your fear is understood. Your story matters.
And to all of us, families, educators, colleagues, partners may these days urge us not into slogans, but into empathy. We urge you to stand firm for dignity, for justice, and for a digital world where freedom does not come at the cost of one’s humanity.
Let us create homes, schools, workplaces, and digital spaces where a woman’s dignity is not negotiable, where her voice is safe, and where her existence does not come with a cost.
Because violence may evolve, but so must our humanity.
The Decolonising Psychology Division (DPD) contributes a profound reflection on how racism, historical trauma, and structural inequality continue to shape the mental health landscape in South Africa.
Read more below:
South Africa’s enduring legacy of slavery, colonialism, and apartheid continues to generate racialisation and associated psychosocial harms. Psychological distress, mental injury, wounding, and trauma are not only individual experiences but also collective outcomes of structural inequality and racial oppression that affect the majority of the population (Kaminer & Eagle, 2020; Kleintjes & Schneider, 2023; Manganyi, 2019; South African Federation for Mental Health, 2020; Williams et al., 2008). These historical injuries are compounded by deep economic inequality, unemployment, gender-based violence, corruption, and the inadequate provision of health, education, and other essential services. Each of these realities impacts society in racially patterned and distorted ways. The question is no longer whether South Africans face increasing psychosocial pressures, but whether psychology and its related professions are prepared to meet this urgent challenge.
In October 2021, the American Psychological Association formally acknowledged its complicity in, and failure to address, the mental injury caused by racism and racialisation (American Psychological Association, 2021). Globally—and in South Africa—racial trauma is increasingly recognised as a significant mental health issue, with terms such as race-based stress, racial wounding, and collective racial wounding and healing gaining prominence (Cénat, 2023; Chávez-Dueñas et al., 2019; Sibrava et al., 2019). Cénat (2023) proposes a framework for complex racial trauma (CoRT), emphasising that racial harm is repetitive, cumulative, vicarious, and unavoidable, affecting the mental, physical, material, and spiritual dimensions of people’s lives.
While these frameworks are valuable, there is a danger of over-pathologising, medicalising, or biologising phenomena that originate in social and structural spheres (Benoist, 2022; Rashid, 2024, 2025). Moreover, mainstream psychological healing—typically talk therapy between practitioner and client—may not provide a complete answer to collective well-being. This approach is individualised, resource-intensive, and grounded in Euro-American praxis that is often contextually inappropriate.
Racial trauma, as a collective wound, requires collective responses and awareness of the social systems that perpetuate injury. At the personal level, healing involves a movement from wounded and fragmented selves toward creativity, wholeness, and community well-being. At the systemic level, collective agency is required to expose, disrupt, and dismantle social and structural oppression. What is urgently required is a decolonial praxis for healing.
A decolonial psychology and praxis of healing offers a pathway forward. It does not reject clinical evidence nor deny the importance of care; rather, it rebalances the relationship between evidence, culture, and context. It asks who defines stress, wounding, and trauma, whose knowledge counts, and how services can be designed with—not merely for—communities most affected by oppression. Beyond individualistic approaches, a decolonial psychology and community-healing framework addresses epistemic justice, systemic racial injuries, and the transgenerational transfer of trauma (Kiounani, 2019; Mullan, 2023; Seedat, 2023; Stevens & Sonn, 2021). Its focus includes intersectional understandings of oppression, multidisciplinary collaboration, the development of critical consciousness, and a reconnection to community-centred, participatory meaning-making and agency (Chioneso et al., 2020; Clay, 2017; Kessi, Suffla, & Seedat, 2022; Malherbe & Ratele, 2022).
Indigenous knowledge, embodied healing, neurobiological understanding, and spirituality are recognised as valid and vital foundations for collective care (Benoist, 2022; Cénat, 2023; Kiounani, 2019; Rashid, 2024, 2025; Rundall, 2019). A decolonial praxis focuses not only on healing but also on growth, emancipation, and resistance. This includes community-embedded and participatory approaches such as storytelling, commemoration, restorative dialogue, ritual, arts-based practice, land- and place-based work, and the rebuilding of shared meaning and social bonds (Morkel, 2011).
For healing to gain traction, community-based programmes and knowledge creation—along with language-appropriate and culturally grounded practices—are essential. Such initiatives should involve collaboration among community practitioners, activists, traditional healers, faith leaders, and a broad referral network (Benoist, 2022; Kleintjes & Schneider, 2023; Rashid, 2024, 2025). Reflective practice is equally vital for frontline workers, enabling them to recognise and metabolise vicarious trauma, which in turn protects both practitioners and their efficacy in serving communities (Masson & Graham, 2022).
A decolonial healing approach to racial trauma in South Africa implies that psychosocial well-being cannot be separated from broader social determinants such as livelihood support, safety, education, and gender-based violence prevention. Psychosocial well-being in South Africa requires both an honest reckoning with history and decisive action to dismantle the conditions that reproduce distress. Psychology and allied professions have an ethical and social obligation to revitalise and reimagine collective, culturally rooted, and emancipatory practices of healing that decolonise existing mental health models.