‘Health psychology’ or ‘psychology for health’? A history of psychologists’ engagement with health in South Africa

Abstract

In contrast to the institutionalization of health psychology in North America and Europe, much psychological work on health issues in South Africa emerged as part of a critical revitalization of South African psychology as a whole, coinciding with the dismantling of Apartheid and global shifts in health discourse. The field's development reflects attempts to engage with urgent health problems in the context of rapid sociopolitical changes that followed democratic transition in the 1990s, and under new conditions of knowledge production. We provide an account of these issues, as well as reflections on the field's future, as inflected through the experiences of 12 South African psychologists whose careers span the emergence of health-related psychology to the present day.

Psychology and health after apartheid: Or, Why there is no health psychology in South Africa.

“…The interviewees included both mid-career as well as senior psychologists, many of whom now chair academic departments and/or hold senior positions in South African government and research organizations. The current article does not present any of these interviews in detail but is informed by them; a full analysis of these interviews will appear in an upcoming article as part of a comparative collection of international histories of health psychology (see Yen & Vaccarino, 2016).…”

“…As the research surveyed in the preceding paragraphs attests, many of these psychologists are at the forefront of important new directions of inquiry, and have been able to maintain a critical and self-reflexive orientation to their work. However, some have admitted that it is becoming increasingly difficult to do truly creative and transgressive work in South African academia (see Yen & Vaccarino, 2016). Indeed, arguments for a criticality tempered by the need for a psychological “evidence base”—particularly as it relates to health issues—are becoming increasingly influential in tying together the fates of the discipline with those of the developmental state (e.g., see the debate between Swartz, 2006, and Kagee, 2006; see also Kagee, 2014).…”

Health psychology in Ghana: A review of the multidisciplinary origins of a young sub-field and its future prospects

“…During the 1980s and 1990s, health research projects and interventions in the fields of medicine, health sciences and health policy were informed partly by global psychological theories and concepts. For example, early public health interventions on HIV/AIDS in Ghana were informed by knowledge–attitude–behaviour models derived from social cognition models in psychology, as was the case in other African countries (Kalipeni et al, 2003; Yen and Vaccarino, 2017).…”

“…Accounts of the status and challenges of psychology in Ghana (de-Graft Aikins et al, 2014a) and other countries, such as Cameroon (Nsamenang et al, 2007), Nigeria (Eze, 1991) and South Africa (Yen and Vaccarino, 2017) during the 1980s and 1990s, fit the Peltzer and Bless (1989) model. While cultural, organizational and human resources challenges have been addressed for sub-fields like clinical psychology, these challenges remain for health psychology in Ghana.…”

Doing Histor{y/ies} of Health Psycholog{y/ies}

“…5 In this context of sustained political debate and action, some psychologists adopted a much more critical approach to health, questioning its focus on medical issues and advancing a more expansive remit. As Yen and Vaccarino (2018) detail, for many psychologists in South Africa, the theory and practices advocated by North Americans and their narrow definition of health was and continues to be an approach with which they could not connect. Similarly, de-Graft Aikins (2018) details the challenges in developing a truly African approach to the psychological study of health and illness in her analysis of developments in Ghana.…”