Search

The Ububele Baby Mat Service is a community-based, parent–infant mental health intervention offered at five primary health care clinics in Alexandra Township, in Johannesburg. The aim of the intervention is to promote healthy caregiver-infant attachments. There has been a steady increase in the number of mother-baby dyads making use of the service. This paper aims to explore how the Baby Mat Service and Baby Mat practitioners position and locate themselves in a culturally diverse community setting where multiple meaning systems are drawn on for making sense of health concerns. Two key components of the Baby Mat Service are discussed: i) the presence of an inter-racial therapeutic couple on the mat; and ii) the stance adopted by the Baby Mat practitioners in relation to culturally diverse understandings of a presenting problem. The therapeutic couple engages with culturally-informed frames of reference in an attitude of wondering and tentative thinking (“mhlawumbe”in isiZulu). When a respectfully curious stance was taken by practitioners, it was found to help those accessing the mat to find symbolic meaning in the presenting problem and integrate this with cultural understandings. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper takes the form of an account of the emergence of the field of psychoanalytically informed parent-infant/child psychotherapy in South Africa. It traces the origins and the development of the South African field by locating local practice within the international field. The influential links between international approaches and local practice and services are described. The historical account is based on a review of published parent-infant/child literature, including South African authored texts. Interviews with key local stakeholders and practitioners supplement the literature review. This paper endeavours to locate parent-infant/child psychotherapy more clearly on the map of mental health work in South Africa, and in so doing to promote the work as both a relevant and valuable intervention. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The United Nations estimates that 79% of teenage girls trafficked globally every year are forced into involuntary prostitution. About 247 000 South African children work in exploitative conditions; about 40 000 South African female teenagers work as prostitutes. This paper investigates lifestyles and routine activities of teenagers at risk of being trafficked for involuntary prostitution. The key concepts involuntary prostitution, intergenerational sex and exploitative conditions are defined in relation to the lifestyles and routine activities of South African female teenagers. Human trafficking for involuntary prostitution is described, based on a literature review. Lifestyle exposure and routine activities theories help to explain the potential victimisation of these teenagers in human trafficking for involuntary prostitution. Actual lifestyle and routine activities of South African teenagers and risky behaviours (substance abuse, intergenerational sex and child prostitution) are discussed as factors that make teens vulnerable to such trafficking. This paper recommends that human trafficking prevention efforts (awareness programmes and information campaigns) be directed at places frequented by human traffickers and teenagers in the absence of a capable guardian to reduce victimisation, as traffickers analyse the lifestyles and routine activities of their targets. South Africa should also interrogate entrenched practices such as intergenerational sex. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The notion of ‘recovery’ in mental health has a long and diverse history in terms of definition, treatment processes and outcomes. Particularly with regard to definition, there has been much debate in the literature. The aim of this paper is to extend the discussion by exploring how the concept is used for two developmentally divergent populations—adults and adolescents. I argued that it is indeed appropriate and valid to use ‘recovery’ in the treatment process for adolescents. However, while adults share various facets of the recovery process with their adolescent counterparts, there are also significant differences such as physiological change, the impact of peers, identity development and the role of family. These crucial differences must guide any clinical services for the adolescent population. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper addresses the impact father absence has on child development and the nature of the transference between father absent, child and therapist. A review of psychoanalytic concepts and theories that relate to this topic are applied to a case study of a preadolescent girl with an incarcerated father. Specific forms of transference that occurred between the client and her male therapist are articulated in an effort to demonstrate the power of working in the transference with girls who struggle with their feelings about having an absent father. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

With the anticipated publication of the DSM-5 in May 2013, much reflection and work has been done on reviewing existing psychiatric nomenclature including, but not limited to the field of traumatic exposure. Traditionally, understanding of the psychiatric and psychological effects of trauma have been developed from studies with adults and then applied to trauma-exposed children with some modifications. While this is an important step to understanding the sequelae of trauma in children and adolescents, the adverse developmental effects of traumatic exposures on the rapidly evolving neurological, physical, social and psychological capacities of children calls for a developmentally sensitive framework for understanding, assessing and treating trauma-exposed children. The importance of early attachment relationships in infancy and childhood means that severely disrupted early caregiving relationships may have far-reaching and lifelong developmental consequences and can therefore be considered traumatic. Given the high rates of violence and trauma exposure of South African children and adolescents, the need for a developmentally based understanding of the effects of trauma on child and adolescent mental health becomes even more pronounced. In this paper, we draw on theoretical perspectives to provide a practical, clinically driven approach to the management of developmental trauma. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]