Ububele

MAIN TRUSTEES AT UBUBELE

Mrs Amina Cachalia
Dr Lillian Cingo
Mr Fakhry David
Dr N.Chabani Manganyi
Mrs Hillary Hamburger
Dr Kedibone Letlaka-Rennert
Mrs Bongi Dhlomo-Motlau
Mr Tony Hamburger

BACKGROUND
In 1981, Dr. N. Chabani Manganyi, one of South Africa's first black clinical psychologists , a trustee of UBUBELE and the past director general of the National Department of Education , writing about the possibilities of a Therapeutic Culture in South Africa , said: "We in South Africa need to discard, once and for all, the idea that was prevalent not so long ago that blacks do not suffer from neuroses…….we need to develop a plan, a strategy for dealing with the realities of African existence in South Africa .We need training facilities, mental health professionals, public mental health education and what is more, employment opportunities for black professionals.
"We need to face the fact that large numbers of our people are ordinary working folk with limited education in most instances. We need to recognise the fact that oppression breeds insecurity and a dissipated sense of self-hood, and leaves psychological scars of varying degrees of chronicity. The urban-rural cultural continuum must be seen as a significant dimension that needs to be taken into account. Last but not least we will require a clearer understanding of the social-psychology of the 'location' or township as a habitat for human occupation."
" We require clinicians who are politically aware and socially committed. In view of the shortage of black professional practitioners, community organisation and consultation are obviously important skills. However, I do not advocate the view that skills traditional to professional clinicians such as those for conceptualising, researching problems and undertaking long-term therapy , are irrelevant. I could not hold this view and say in the same breath that a therapeutic culture is coming into being. Nor that the symptom neuroses in black communities will progressively be replaced by character disorders. We will, therefore, need generalists to work at the grass root levels and specialists to help the elite with their character disorders."
("A Therapeutic Culture?" from 'Looking Through The Keyhole' Dissenting Essays on the Black Experience')