The practice of behavior therapy in West Africa: The case of Ghana

The African Belief System and the Patient’s Choice of Treatment from Existing Health Models-the Case of Ghana

“…From the case study, the lack of explanation for the client's illness prompted the family to seek spiritual care, based on their existing beliefs. In Ghana, situations that are challenging to explain are attributed to spiritual causes and that is their belief system [7,15]. Spiritual belief, therefore, should be explored during assessment and diagnosis of a client in order to reduce the delays in seeking medical treatment.…”

“…Though the family had strong spiritual beliefs, if the medical center had identified a physical cause of the condition, the family would have complied with Western treatment. In Ghana, situations that are challenging to explain are generally attributed to spiritual causes [15]. Spiritual beliefs seem to influence Ghanaians and Africans when choosing treatment modalities for their illnesses.…”

“…A plausible explanation for this strong belief about spiritual causes of mental illness is that research into mental illness is quite recent in Africa. As there is a strong spiritual belief in Africans [4], any situation or event which is not clearly understood is attributed to spiritual explanations [7,15]. In Ghana, the first treatment of choice in seeking treatment for mental illness is the Spiritual practice, followed by the Traditional Herbal practice [2].…”

“…The choice of the treatment modalities by the patient is not associated with the proximity nor with the cost of treatment, but, rather it seems to be related to the patient's or the family's concept of the aetiology of the illness which is based on the spiritual belief [2,15]. If the patient believes that his/her mental health disorder is due to sin against God, the choice of treatment would be Orthodox Church practices; if the cause of illness is due to demonic influence (satanic) then the choice would be the Charismatic Church practices; and if he/she believes that the cause is witches, a curse from the "juju/voodoo", the wrong doing against the ancestral spirits, etc.…”

“…In the area of mental health, it has been noted that in Ghana the health seeking behaviours of clients are mostly focused on the Charismatic and Orthodox churches, followed by the Shrine consultation, including the traditional herbal treatments where some of the practitioners combine shrine and herbal treatment approaches [2,15]. The Western medical practices including psychiatry and psychology seem to be less patronized by Ghanaian clients [9].…”