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Due to the widespread occurrence of mental disorders among adolescents, there is globally a recognised need to assess the mental well-being of higher education students. Those in extended programmes, dealing with self-esteem and capability challenges intensified by peer and institutional attitudes, might face heightened susceptibility to mental health issues. Moreover, research suggests that the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic likely worsened students' mental health difficulties. This study aimed to assess the prevalence of mental health issues among students in a South African university's extended curriculum programme in 2022 while exploring potential gender differences. Furthermore, by comparing these findings to a 2017 study, it sought to assess the COVID-19 pandemic's potential impact on the mental health of extended programme students. Paper-based questionnaires evaluated depression, anxiety, and stress symptoms among first-year extended programme students in 2017 (pre-COVID, n = 208) and in 2022 (within the pandemic, post-lockdown, n = 202). The results showed consistently high levels of mental health issues for both cohorts, with no statistically significant difference between the cohorts. However, female students in the 2022 cohort faced notably more mental health challenges than their male peers. Universities should enhance mental health education and awareness campaigns and explore new counselling methods to assist the growing number of students in need of support. Further research ought to investigate the factors behind the heightened mental health issues, especially among female students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On the occasion of 30 years of South African democracy, we reflect on the current state of Psychology research in South Africa. We conducted a situational analysis of all papers appearing in the South African Journal of Psychology (SAJP) and abstracts in PsycINFO with the keyword ‘South Africa’ over the last 5 years and compared the results with a previous review that used the same methodology. Findings show an increase in papers using ‘hard’ science approaches and a decrease in systems-oriented theories. Assessment remains a major topic. While COVID-19 and climate change featured, there remains a lack of or low focus on several key psycho-social issues experienced by South Africans. People living in poorer provinces and young and older people are under-represented in knowledge production. Collaborations or comparisons with other African or South American countries have decreased. Positively, production is being spearheaded by South African scholars or people affiliated with South African institutions. Using a decolonising lens that foregrounds epistemic justice, we conclude that substantial work remains to be done for knowledge production in South African Psychology to fulfil the decolonising imperative of distributive epistemic justice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents an invitation to submit manuscripts to the journal "South African Journal of Psychology" as guest issue for the next volume of the publication in South Africa. Hypnotherapy is explained as a distinctive opportunity for enabling people to experience well-being, happiness and comfort. It also mentions that the editor calls for manuscripts to showcase best article about hypnotherapy.

This paper describes the Ububele Baby Mat Project - a community parent-infant mental health intervention offered at primary health care clinics in Alexandra (an impoverished township in Johannesburg, South Africa). The paper traces the project's history and theoretical underpinnings. At its core, the Baby Mat Project aims to support the caregiving component (parents/caregivers and their support structures) of the attachment system, through a focus on reflective functioning, observation and direct communication with the infant. The facilitating of wondering, mhlawumbe in isiZulu, encourages deeper thought about the meaning of the presenting problem, which is usually of a seemingly concrete nature. An in situ example illustrates the process of a Baby Mat session. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Crimes of sexual violence are known to result in rather difficult court experiences for survivors, and the conviction rates are also disappointingly low. These issues, however, are compounded when the rape survivor has an intellectual disability. Courts seem to require more of them than they do from non-disabled survivors. The paper discusses the hurdles faced by intellectually disabled complainants when attempting to give evidence against those accused of assaulting them. Their competency as witnesses is questioned, as is their ability to take the oath, and their understanding of such abstract concepts as 'truth' and 'lie' are interrogated. The paper also examines some of the international perspectives on this matter, although there is little research done specifically on intellectually disabled adult rape survivors. The extent to which current approaches are fair, and in line with basic human rights, is raised since access to the courts ought to be made easier, rather than more difficult for those with intellectual disabilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is 40 years since the South African Navy (SAN) first started with the psychological selection of their submariners. This article traces the development of the selection process over the past four decades. Initially, it involved an intensive selection process, which included pen-and-paper tests, questionnaires, interviews, and skills assessments. Later validation of the process, as well as practical constraints, produced a number of consolidated pen-and-paper test batteries. The advent of democracy and the changing composition of the SAN forced the navy to make drastic changes to the selection model and to introduce a more fair system of psychometric assessment of individuals in the larger South African society. These effects are discussed before the article concludes with a view towards the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper seeks to raise questions about the rigour of psychiatric diagnosis with specific reference to the diagnostic category of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). It is argued that because of the inclusion of the stressor criterion (verifiable exposure to an external event) PTSD is very much located in consensual reality. In addition, because of its application to victims in extremity, the diagnosis cannot help but engage with people who are at the receiving end of abuses of power. Such characteristics shape PTSD as a somewhat uniquely sociallylocated diagnostic category and bring specific challenges to bear in the employment of the diagnosis. Not only is PTSD problematic in its location within a Western, medically-based system of classification, but it has also been drawn upon to serve explicitly political rather than purely clinical agendas. The political role of PTSD has tended to be most evident in the psycho-forensic domain where it has been cited in favour of both complainants and defendants, both perpetrators and victims. Examples of such evidence are discussed with particular emphasis on the role played by PTSD diagnosticians in the South African context. It is argued that the malleability of PTSD offers both problems and opportunities and that ultimately the integrity of the diagnosis may rest on moral as much as clinical principles. In this respect the paper seeks to illustrate that definitions of normality and abnormality in the psychiatric domain remain flawed and open to contestation and abuse. The importance of organizational and collegial support in grappling with these issues is also emphasized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines possible links between negative addiction to running and personality variables. More specifically, it addresses the question of why only certain runners become addicted to running and whether there is a unique interaction between personality variables and specific reinforcing aspects of running. Drawing on the results of four studies conducted in an ongoing research programme at the University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, significant trends that have emerged with regard to the personality attributes of addicted runners are highlighted and explained. In particular, the studies provide preliminary supportive evidence for personality differences between extremely dependent and non-dependent groups of runners. It appears that excessive dependence on running is associated with generally rigid, inflexible personality patterns rather than specific personality pathology. The findings further suggest an association between negative addiction to running and interpersonal difficulties. Using Theodore Millon's Biosocial learning theory of personality as the conceptual framework for interpreting these results, this paper offers explanations of how the identified personality pattern of highly dependent runners interacts with the contextual and physiological variables elicited by running to maintain addictive behaviour. Finally, this paper suggests a number of directions for future research into excessive exercise dependence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose behind the (ongoing) work reported on in this paper is to develop a productive educational response to the problem of older learners who return to formal schooling after a period of absence, or enter it for the first time; ‘older’ in the sense of being at least three years older than the norm for the Foundation Phase. The aim of this paper is twofold: firstly, to discuss ways in which to assess learning outcomes in preliterate learners and, secondly, to question various approaches to the problem of older learners and formal schooling. As regards our empirical findings, we conclude that, as a group, the learners show encouraging signs of benefiting from schooling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Heterosexual sexuality (heterosex) has been criticised for its central role in the reproduction of gender inequality and violence against women. This paper explores the way in which students draw on discourses of power and violence in their discussion of heterosexual relationships. The paper is based on a larger discourse analytic study of 17 focus groups and a free-association exercise carried out with psychology students at the University of the Western Cape. The paper highlights students' constructions of heterosexual relationships as bound up with power and violence. Significantly, resistance and challenge to such a status quo, particularly by women, are also evident. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides an analysis of perpetrators of gross violations of human rights based on material drawn from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). After reviewing broad trends in the literature, it analyses perpetrators' actions in terms of four broad areas: contexts, perspectives, motives and causes, and neglected factors. Arguing for a primarily political understanding, and critical of psychological reductionism, the paper also covers other important factors notably social identities, language and ideology, the dynamics of situations and authoritarianism. It touches on the neglected areas of masculinity, special organisations, secrecy and emotions. Arguments are illustrated with quotations from TRC material. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The theoretical objectives of this special focus on critical contexts of pathology are briefly examined under four general themes: 'over-determining psychopathology', 'opposing universalizing and/or apolitical trends', 'the social logics of discrimination', and 'de-essentializing psychopathology'. This discussion links the different papers gathered together here and pin-points an overall critical imperative, that of destabilizing notions of psychopathology as exclusively individualistic, decontexualized, essentialist or organic forms of 'sickness'. The paper also reflects on the South Africa context and queries how examinations of psychopathology may inflect broader questions of social prejudice and discrimination. The theoretical objectives of this special focus on critical contexts of pathology are briefly examined under four general themes: 'over-determining psychopathology', 'opposing universalizing and/or apolitical trends', 'the social logics of discrimination', and 'de-essentializing psychopathology'. This discussion links the different papers gathered together here and pin-points an overall critical imperative, that of destabilizing notions of psychopathology as exclusively individualistic, decontexualized, essentialist or organic forms of 'sickness'. The paper also reflects on the South Africa context and queries how examinations of psychopathology may inflect broader questions of social prejudice and discrimination. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As South Africa prepared to host the 30th International Congress of Psychology in 2012, a call was made to reflect on the strengths of and challenges facing contemporary South African Psychology. This article presents our response to our brief to focus on social issues by presenting the results of a situational analysis of South African Psychology over the last 5 years and comparing this corpus of data to a similar analysis reported in Macleod. Articles appearing in the South African Journal of Psychology and abstracts in PsycINFO with the keyword ‘South Africa’ over a 5.5-year period were analysed. The content of 243 South African Journal of Psychology articles and 1986 PsycINFO abstracts was analysed using the codes developed by Macleod. Results indicate that an increase in the number of articles, a reduction in the percentage of articles using quantitative methodologies and ‘hard’ science theoretical frameworks (particularly in the South African Journal of Psychology), and an increase in qualitative, theoretical, and methodological articles, and articles using systems-oriented theory (particularly in the South African Journal of Psychology). Traditional topics of assessment, stress and psychopathology continue to dominate, with social issues, such as housing, land reform, development programmes, water resources and socio-economic inequities being largely ignored. Most research continues to be conducted in Gauteng, KwaZulu/Natal and the Western Cape, predominantly with adult, urban-based, middle-class participants, sourced mainly from universities, hospitals or clinics, and schools. Collaborations or comparisons with other African, Asian, South American, and Middle East countries have decreased. While the analysis presented in this paper is limited by its exclusion of books, theses, research reports and monographs, it shows that in published research there are some positive trends and some disappointments. The limited number of social issues featuring in published research, the under-representation of certain sectors of the population as participants, and the decrease in collaboration with, or comparison to, countries from the global ‘South’ represent challenges that require systematic attention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relevance debate in psychology can be described as discourse which calls for the discipline to become more socially valuable and accessible to those who purportedly need it. Literature suggests that there is a socio-historical dimension to relevance discourse that is frequently overlooked by those engaging in the debate, resulting in a typically ahistorical and axiomatic presentation. It is therefore argued that an historical perspective on the relevance debate is necessary for an informed consideration of its attending issues. This paper compares relevance discourse from South Africa (1974-1994) and the United States of America (1960-1980) by means of a thematic analysis of journal articles published during these periods in the South African Journal of Psychology and American Psychologist, respectively. The analysis yielded six key analytic themes: social upheaval; the pureapplied dichotomy in psychology; the role of psychology in socio-political matters; the place of human values in science; equity in psychology; and indigenising psychology. The first five themes are common to both the American and South African debates. Consequently, it is argued that the two debates arose in similar social contexts and that, in particular, the relevance debate is associated with conditions of social upheaval. This historicisation of relevance discourse permits a more critical and accurate understanding of the relationship between the debate and contemporary society [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mixed methods are becoming increasingly popular in social science research. There has recently been a groundswell of literature suggesting that mixed methods should be viewed as a unique form of social enquiry with its own set of philosophical, methodological and practice guidelines, as opposed to the simple combination of quantitative and qualitative methods in one study. In response to three critiques of South African psychological research, this paper argues that regardless of whether we agree that mixed methods is a unique form of social enquiry, the current literature offers useful insights into conceptualising both mixed and mono methods research. It is hoped that this article will stimulate further interest in mixed methods research in South African psychological research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a health crisis such as diagnosis with cancer and its subsequent treatment, patients may draw on spirituality to attach meanings to the illness. In South Africa, patients' meanings of chronic illness may also be shaped by a specific African religious context. To describe psychological understandings of chronic illness, 16 patients diagnosed with cervical cancer for six months or longer were interviewed at a South African hospital, and the qualitative data were subjected to thematic analysis. This paper reports on spiritual meanings, as one component of these psychological understandings that get attached to living with cervical cancer. For holistic management of cervical cancer patients, and by extension for palliative care, spiritual dimensions should not be neglected; all members of any multi-disciplinary oncology team should be alerted to these dimensions to provide adequate care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What does it mean, to be 'autonomous', and more specifically, is it still possible to discern a modicum of 'autonomy' on the part of people in contemporary 'carceral' society to a significant degree - that is, a degree not limited to a handful of individuals whose autonomy one may discern in their 'critical' actions vis-á-vis mainstream discourses and behaviour? Is there indeed evidence, as implied by the question above, that the majority of people today function as 'docile bodies', in Foucault's words? In this paper it is argued that Foucault - especially in his study of ancient sexuality - provides one with a model for autonomy in a psychical as well as ethical sense, which can be articulated in terms of what Hellenistic thinkers termed 'the care of the self'. Further that, for various reasons, this model is worth emulating, given the disciplinary, 'panoptical' structure and functioning of contemporary society, which tends to reduce individuals to 'docile bodies'. It is noteworthy that, according to Foucault, psychology has been historically complicit in this process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we review South African research conducted in the last 10 years on the consequences of and contributory factors in teen-aged pregnancy. We discuss research into the rates of teen-aged pregnancy, the intentionality and wantedness of pregnancy, the disruption of schooling, health issues, consequences for the children, welfare concerns, knowledge and use of contraception, timing of sexual debut, age of partner, coercive sexual relations, cultural factors and health service provision. We compare this discussion to the reviews on the same topic appearing in the South African Journal of Psychology a decade ago. We find that there are several changes in focus in the research on pregnancy amongst young women. We conclude that, in general, there has been an improvement in the breadth of data available, mostly as a result of representative national and local surveys. A better teasing out of nuances around particular issues and a grappling with theoretical issues are also evident in recent research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Responsive to the perceived high risks of HIV-infection by sexually active youth, several South African sexual health promotion campaigns have used media targeting parents/mothers, instructing them on how sex should be talked about with their children/youth to 'risk-proof' them. In this paper I examine how conversations about sex between apparently unwilling parents and young people are fabricated in selected loveLife print-media texts. A Foucauldian analysis of subject positioning explores how expert communication techniques are offered to set up 'discussions'. I examine the implications for intergenerational communication of loveLife's use of a youth-culture discourse about adolescent agency alongside the familiar storm-and-stress discourse about adolescent deficits. I also explore how power is masked in figuring 'open', 'willing' and 'conflict-free' conversations about sexual issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bullying is generally defined as largely unprovoked, negative physical or psychological actions perpetrated repeatedly over time between bully/ies and victims. Bullying can lead to fear of school, absenteeism, and stunted academic progress, which in turn are precursors to dropping out of school. This paper's aim is to report rates of bullying behaviour, and to investigate whether bullying behaviour predicts high school dropout in Cape Town, South Africa. Stratified, proportional sampling yielded 39 from a total of 214 schools, from which 40 learners were randomly selected from the combined class list of two, randomly chosen, Grade 8 classes in each of the 39 participating schools. Thus 1 470 learners (from a total of 181 018) completed a self-report questionnaire in 1997, and were followed-up in 2001. This report focuses on those learners who had dropped out of school between 1997 and 2001 (n = 776; 55.2%). Univariate and multiple logistic regression models were used to investigate the relationship between bullying behaviours and dropout, controlling for factors known to be strongly related to high school dropout, namely age, socioeconomic status, race, or ethnicity, being raised by a single parent, repeating a grade, and substance use. Odds ratios and 95 per cent confidence intervals were calculated, taking the clustering of schools into account. In1997, 52% of the boys and 37% of the girls had been involved in bullying behaviours. Of the three bullying categories (bully, victim, and bully-victim), girls but not boys in the 'bully-victim' category were significantly more likely to drop out of school (OR 1.82; CI 1.09-3.04, and when controlling for confounders OR 2.60; CI 1.32-5.10). The pervasiveness of both high school dropout and bullying behaviour points to an urgent need for future research, and intervention in these areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on adolescent youth living in the townships of the Midlands region of KwaZulu- Natal. The subject sample has lived within violence stricken communities for most of their lives. It was assumed that all participants were also victims of poverty and social discrimination. Four different communities, with varying profiles of political and criminal violence, combined with varied access to resources were selected. A life events scale, a symptom checklist and a coping scale were used to ascertain the degree of psychological distress. The results indicated that a number of individual and community variables are likely intervening variables. This led to the development of an interactionist model, which indicates that a number of mediating and/or moderating variables operate which enhance resilience or alternatively place an individual at greater risk for the development of psychopathology. Other probable mediating variables, not fully investigated in this study but suggested in recent literature, are discussed. These include cognitive attribution, meaning of the violence to the individual and the community as well as the nature of the ‘enemy’. The need for greater focus on factors which facilitate coping both at community and individual level are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is an attempt to address the severe paucity in both South African and international literature concerning eating disordered behaviour in young ballet dancers. Allegations suggest that for decades a conspiratorial silence has been maintained in the dancing world around the eating disordered behaviours of performers. The only serious suggestions alluding to high levels of eating disordered behaviour among performers in South Africa have appeared anecdotally in the popular media. Previous international research has suggested that dancers could not possibly maintain their sylph-like physiques with the amount of energy expended in daily training and simultaneously adhere to healthy nutritional standards. In fact, some studies cite high levels of malnutrition amongst members of the dance community (Peterson, 1984). The current research study confirms these findings showing highly significant differences in the drive for thinness in dancers compared with normative adolescent samples. Results also indicate tendencies to interpersonal distrust which could explain why this sensitive behaviour has been so difficult to identify and treat in the past. More detailed statistical analyses show that this sample of adolescent dancers exhibit strong similarities with eating disordered individuals, both anorexic and bulimic. These results provide the evidence required by interested parties to intervene in the neglected nutrition and psychological health of dancers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the criminal trial of Eugene de Kock, aspects of his murderous rampage were attributed to his purported experience of cognitive dissonance (CD), emotional blunting and posttraumatic stress disorder. This paper will critique the use of CD in this particular case and explore the theoretical underpinnings of CD. A few examples from the court record will be used to illustrate the place of CD in explaining perpetrators' actions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper asserts that selected texts of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission possess a powerful political potential in their ability to challenge and refute historical relations of racialised power in South Africa. The prospective political efficacy of these texts is seen as residing in their critical ability to subvert and challenge the predominant understandings, discourses and representations of Apartheid, or the 'old', South Africa. Three overlapping routes of enquiry are explored in this regard. Firstly, the political efficacy of such texts is seen as arising from their role in terms of the recovery of previously repressed histories. This recovery enlarges the archive of South Africa's past and contributes to the constitution of a new body of knowledge, from which credible standpoints of resistance and opposition may be articulated. A second explanation highlights the fact these texts are able to exert a form of discursive critique upon the predominant practices and representations of both former and reigning social orders. This level of critique enables us, in Foucault's (1981) terms to restore to political discourses their nature as contextual and discontinuous practices of construction as opposed to naturally-occurring, seamlessly-unified, purely significatory instances of language. The last account engages more directly with the radical and transgressive nature of these texts, with their affective and ultimately symptomatic qualities. It is here suggested that these texts have earned their extraordinary visceral charge, their special power and horror, for many South Africans, precisely because they have exposed and stretched to the limit the boundaries of the past discursive order, of what had been known, what was understood and what could be represented in the Apartheid State. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is much debate at present around changing the professional structure of psychology to better meet the needs of South African society. In this paper this debate is assessed in terms of the requirements of the employment sector. Employment advertisements, for psychology and social and human science graduates appearing in three national weekly newspapers over 21 years, from 1976 to 1996, were analyzed. From the data it appears that the role of psychology in the 'New South Africa' is changing, with new opportunities opening up for graduates with broad as opposed to narrow professional qualifications. The implications of this for the professional structure of the discipline of psychology are considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In defence of South African discursive social psychology, this paper provides a brief account of social form and experience as immanent in discursive practices. Social order and social institutions must be viewed as no more and no less than the sedimentation of coordinated human practices, and that any attempt to explain the 'objectivity' of the human made social world by recourse to biological or cultural essences is to entirely misunderstand its ontology. I argue that this immanentist perspective provides a more adequate account of the social psychology of social transformation, and steers clear of some potential political problems associated with cultural essentialism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a profile of female amnesty applicants and delineates the idiosyncrasies of the amnesty process. The percentage of female amnesty applicants is very small and the percentage that could be linked to perpetration is negligible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides an analysis of the psychological testimony in an amnesty application to the TRC based on the court record. Arguing that PTSD and its diagnostic criteria has become so well known that the DSTMIV caution regarding malingering and benefit eligibility should be given greater weight during psychological testimony than has occurred. Especially where potential beneficiaries of testimony have repeatedly perjured themselves even greater caution should be exercised rather than unequivocally endorsing their truthfulness as in the case of Mr Benzien. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]