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

Abstract

As part of a growing literature on the histories of psychology in the Global South, this article outlines some historical developments in South African psychologists' engagement with the problem of "health." Alongside movements to formalize and professionalize a U.S.-style "health psychology" in the 1990s, there arose a parallel, eclectic, and more or less critical psychology that contested the meaning and determinants of health, transgressed disciplinary boundaries, and opposed the responsibilization of illness implicit in much health psychological theorizing and neoliberal discourse. This disciplinary bifurcation characterized South African work well into the postapartheid era, but ideological distinctions have receded in recent years under a new regime of knowledge production in thrall to the demands of the global market. The article outlines some of the historical-political roots of key trends in psychologists' work on health in South Africa, examining the conditions that have impinged on its directions and priorities. It raises questions about the future trajectories of psychological research on health after 20 years of democracy, and argues that there currently is no "health psychology" in South Africa, and that the discipline is the better for it.

Homo neoliberalus: From personality to forms of subjectivity

“…From a Foucauldian (e.g., 1997) perspective, the NLFS has thoroughly internalized responsibilization, governmentality , and subjectification . The NLFS accepts being responsible for tasks that were solved in a welfare state by a collective consensus, such as health care or education (see also Yen, 2016). Yet, the NLFS realizes that in disaster capitalism (Klein, 2007) it may be more beneficial to find solutions that serve “me” and “my family” (not literally me , as this term is used in this article from a generalized first-person perspective).…”

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

“…These are demarcated by the democratic transition, represented by the election of a majority African National Congress (ANC) government in 1994. Although there is evidence of psychological work on health prior to the 1970s, this was not continuous with the developments we describe here (see Yen, 2016, for a discussion of these discontinuities). We begin by outlining broader social and political events that served as contexts for the emergence of ‘health’ as a focus for psychologists around the world and in South Africa, namely, (1) shifts in health discourse, (2) the HIV/AIDS pandemic in Southern Africa and (3) attempts to intervene in the causes and consequences of violence in South African society.…”

“…Our historical account has been reconstructed and contextualized through an analysis of the published literature and archival material, and frames a subsequent analysis of oral history interviews with South African psychologists who engaged with health issues both before and after the democratic elections in 1994. While a more comprehensive historical narrative has been published elsewhere (Yen, 2016), this article focuses specifically on themes and concerns that arose out of interviews conducted with key researchers and practitioners in the area. It reveals some of the personal experiences, motivations and challenges of South African psychologists working in the context of rapid social and political change.…”

“…Our account also does not constitute an argument for the creation of such a category. Indeed, some of the South African scholarship explicitly questions the very meanings of ‘health’ and ‘psychology’ that are taken for granted in mainstream health psychology (Yen, 2016). Finally, our account is organized around broad themes – interwoven with citations to the literature and excerpts from our interviews – following neither a linear, periodized historical narrative nor the typical structure of a qualitative empirical research report.…”

Decolonial theory and disability studies: On the modernity/coloniality of ability

“…obscures the larger contextual (e.g., geopolitical, economic, cultural) forces that differentially afford health and illness (e.g., Adams & Salter, 2007;Yen, 2016); and lends "scientific credibility to the idea that disabilities are wholly an individual experience" (Smart & Smart, 2006, p. 30). As with illness and disease more generally, the medical model does not deny outright the person-environment interaction as a feature of disability etiology and prognosis but recognizes that some contexts are more pathogenic or disabling than others.…”