World AIDS Day – 1 December 2025

by Web Admin | Dec 1, 2025 | Health Psychology (HP), Mental Health Advocacy, Mental Health Calendar, Psychology in Public Service (PiPS)

World AIDS Day – 1 December 2025

“Overcoming Disruption, Transforming the AIDS Response”

Today we honour the resilience of communities, practitioners, and health systems responding to HIV in the face of global funding cuts, service disruptions, and persistent inequities. As highlighted in contributions from our HPD and PiPS divisions, protecting the gains made in South Africa’s HIV response requires renewed commitment to both biomedical advances and psychosocial care.

We reflect on the continued psychological burden carried by people living with HIV, the impact of stigma and trauma, and the essential role of mental-health professionals in strengthening continuity of care, integrating mental-health screening, and championing trauma-informed, person-centred, and rights-based approaches.

This World AIDS Day, we stand with communities, researchers, and health workers who persist with dedication, empathy, and hope.

Read the PiPS and HPD contributions below:

Psychology in Public Service (PiPS) Division – Overcoming Disruption and Transforming the AIDS Response

On the first of December, we commemorate World AIDS Day, and this year in 2025, we actively reflect. Reflect on how we as communities, practitioners and even healthcare systems have adapted and continue to adapt and innovate, in the face of adversity and disruption. Our response to the HIV epidemic, has been one of the most ambitious in the world. However, this is not to say that it hasn’t been without challenges. This year the focus is on a renewed effort and sustainable commitments to revitalising not only our biomedical responses but also psychosocial interventions.

As psychologists working within the public service, we are reminded and attempt to remind all, that HIV is both a medical and mental health condition. Disruptions to care, amplify the psychological vulnerabilities of an already vulnerable group. Sadly, stigma remains a challenge faced all too often, while heightened anxiety, depression and trauma exposure are common.

Yet when faced with these challenges we as South Africans have found opportunities for transformation. We as mental-health professionals have the ability to shape a response, that is more dynamic, person-centred, equitable and resilient. However, this does mean that we are going to have to strengthen continuity of care, by integrating mental-health screening and brief interventions into HIV services. While actively addressing stigma and discrimination, including internalised stigma. Which impacts on adherence and wellbeing. We have to champion trauma-informed care, which can only take place effectively in the context of interdisciplinary collaboration. Leading to advancements in treatment literacy, community empowerment, and hopefully advances in prevention. While of course, looking after ourselves and colleagues, who face the reality of burnout, moral distress and secondary trauma.

In marking World AIDS Day, PiPS would like to acknowledge the continued psychological burden carried by people living with HIV, as well as their families, and the teams who treat and support them. We wish to pay tribute to the resilience of communities that continue to advocate for, organise and provide care for, in the face of adversity.

Overcoming disruption isn’t just possible, rather it’s been continuously underway in every interaction when practitioners engage with empathy, expertise and the facilitation of hope.

Health Psychology Division (HPD) – World AIDS Day

Today we commemorate World AIDS Day under the theme: “Overcoming disruption, transforming the AIDS response.”

We highlight a global funding crisis that is threatening decades of progress on HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment. This disruption is disproportionately affecting marginalized communities and leaving them behind. Despite these global setbacks, community-led organisations, researchers, and health workers continue to defend vital gains and push for a stronger, more equitable HIV/AIDS response.

Here in South Africa, researchers continue to produce vital evidence that guides policy and strengthens services for communities affected by HIV:

Securing our HIV response: The PEPFAR crisis in South Africa.
Structural determinants of HIV inequities in South Africa: Policy analysis of the national strategic plan for HIV 2023–2028.

Ending AIDS is possible. But only if we protect communities, fund the response, and uphold human rights.

HIV/AIDS AWARENESS 2025 – DRM Division

Reflections, Progress, and the Road Ahead

December 1st was an important time to reflect on South Africa’s progress in combating the HIV pandemic, while also recommitting to the work that is still required to fight AIDS. The national theme for 2025 “Renewed Efforts, Sustainable Commitments to End AIDS” highlighted a social commitment to continuing advances and closing the gaps in the fight against AIDS (Government of South Africa, 2025).

Recent figures indicate considerable progress. According to the SABSSM V1 National HIV Survey, HIV infection rates across all ages decreased from 14.0% in 2017 to 12.7% in 2022 (Human Sciences Research Council, 2023a). Antiretroviral Therapy(ART) has significantly increased, reaching roughly 80.9%in 2022 compared to the 63.7% in 20217 (HSRC, 2023b).

Progress toward the UNAIDS 95-95-95 targets is encouraging as 89% of people living with HIV aged 15 and older know their HIV status, 90.7% are on treatment, and 93.9% are virally suppressed (HSRC, 2023c).

In spite of these gains, difficulties still exits. For instance, estimates show that more than one in four people living with HIV remain untreated, despite the widely recommended antiretroviral therapy (SECTION27, 2024). In response to this challenge, the government and its partners started the Close the Gap programme in 2025, hoping to introduce 1.1. million individuals on antiretroviral therapy (World Health Organisation, Regional Office for Africa, 2025).

Stigma, identity, trauma, resilience, and disclosure, remain crucial to the psychological wellbeing of individuals and communities. For psychologists and mental health practitioners, these challenges highlight the fundamental social and emotional aspects of living with HIV. Thus, the involvement of mental health practitioners is critical in supporting holistic care treatment of those living with HIV/AIDS.

While a full month is not officially designated to HIV/AIDS awareness, the Division of Research and Methodology (DRM) encourages its members to continue advancing psychological assistance, social action, and community involvement. Ending AIDS is not only a biomedical challenge – it’s a psychosocial one.

South Africa must continue to build a future where all HIV-positive people live healthy and empowered lives by working together!

References
Government of South Africa. (2025). World AIDS Day 2025. https://www.gov.za
Human Sciences Research Council. (2023a). SABSSM VI: Progress and disparities in South Africa’s HIV epidemic.
Human Sciences Research Council. (2023b). Turning the tide: Trends in HIV prevalence, prevention and treatment.
Human Sciences Research Council. (2023c). SABSSM VI full report – HIV indicators.
SECTION27. (2024). One in four people with HIV not on treatment. https://section27.org.za
World Health Organization Regional Office for Africa. (2025). South Africa launches 1.1 million HIV treatment campaign. https://www.afro.who.int

Compiled by: Vusi Mthimkhulu
DRM Member

AJOPA (African Journal of Psychological Assessment) accepted for inclusion in Scopus

by Web Admin | Nov 28, 2025 | AJOPA, Events and Announcements

African Journal of Psychological Assessment accepted for inclusion in Scopus

The open-access ‘African Journal of Psychological Assessment’ (AJOPA), established in 2019, has achieved an exciting milestone with its inclusion in Scopus, one of the world’s leading abstract and citation databases. View the journal’s Scopus entry here: https://ow.ly/7Wsu50XqWGq

This development underscores the journal’s commitment to advancing high-quality research in psychometrics and testing relevant to Africa.

Journal affiliation: PsySSA
Journal website: https://ow.ly/cvjC50XqWGs

Click Here To View The Journal

Click Here To Read More About AJOPA's Scopus Inclusion

PsyCast: From the President’s Desk – Prof Jace Pillay – 2025: Episode 1

by Web Admin | Nov 27, 2025 | 16 Days of Activism against Gender-based Violence, PsyCAST

From the

President’s Desk

Prof Jace Pillay

2025: Episode 1

Episode 1

by Prof. Jace Pillay | From the President's Desk

In his first episode as PsySSA President, Prof Jace Pillay opens the 2025 From the President’s Desk series with a powerful reflection on the 16 Days of Activism for No Violence Against Women and Children. Prof Pillay speaks to the widespread psychological impact of gender-based violence, the urgent need for systemic change, and the essential role of psychology in advancing safety, healing and justice in South Africa.

Tune in to hear his vision, insights and call to action as we begin this year’s campaign and continue the work toward a society free from violence.

Decolonising Psychology Division – 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence

by Web Admin | Nov 26, 2025 | 16 Days of Activism against Gender-based Violence, Decolonising Psychology (DP)

PsySSA Decolonising Division (DPD)

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.

PsySSA Stands in Solidarity with 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence

by Web Admin | Nov 25, 2025 | 16 Days of Activism against Gender-based Violence

PsySSA Stands in Solidarity with 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence

Today marks the start of the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence (25 November – 10 December).

This year, we open the campaign with the global call to End Digital Violence Against All Women and Girls — a reminder that violence does not only occur in physical spaces. Online harassment, cyberstalking, non-consensual sharing of images, digital threats, misinformation and targeted abuse cause real psychological harm, deepen systemic inequalities, and silence the voices of women, girls and LGBTQIA+ people.

In South Africa, where gender-based violence and femicide remain widespread, the digital world has become an extension of these patterns of harm. Online violence reinforces stigma, retraumatises survivors, and limits participation in social, academic and economic life — especially for young women and marginalised communities. Ending digital violence is therefore an essential part of building a safer, more just society both offline and online.

Just days ago, the Women’s Shutdown on 21 November highlighted the national urgency of confronting all forms of GBV. That collective action reminded us that the fight against violence — whether physical, structural or digital — requires solidarity, accountability and sustained commitment.

As the Psychological Society of South Africa (PsySSA), we recognise the deep psychological impacts of digital violence and the ways it intersects with trauma, identity, power and social exclusion. Our discipline plays a crucial role in supporting survivors, promoting safe digital environments, advocating for rights-based policies, and helping communities build resilience and digital literacy. We remain committed to advancing ethical, trauma-informed practice that places human dignity at the centre.

Over the next 16 days, PsySSA will share daily contributions from our Divisions — offering insights, tools and reflections that support the national and global call to end gender-based violence in all its forms.

Online and offline, every person deserves safety, respect and the freedom to speak without fear.
The work continues — today, and every day.

G20 Women’s Shutdown

by PsySSA-Web Support | Nov 20, 2025 | 16 Days of Activism against Gender-based Violence

PsySSA stands in solidarity with Women for Change and supports the upcoming National Women’s Shutdown.
We affirm the call to end gender-based violence and femicide, and we recognise the profound psychological, social and economic impact this crisis has on communities across
South Africa.
As a society committed to human rights, dignity and social justice, we support peaceful collective action that highlights the value of women’s labour, voices and leadership.
This shutdown is more than a protest — it is a demand for justice, accountability, and the right of every person to live free from fear.
South Africa cannot thrive while its women are unsafe.

Events and Announcements