Week 1:

A Brief History of Psychology in

South Africa
 Week 1 Required Reading
• Naidoo, A.V. (1996). Challenging the hegemony of
Eurocentric psychology. Journal of Community and Health
Sciences, 2(2), 9-16

• Duncan, N., Stevens, G., & Bowman, B. (2004). South

African psychology and racism: historical determinants and
future prospects. In Hook, D (eds), Critical psychology (pp
360-389). Cape Town: Juta & Company Ltd.
 Introduction

• Why study psychology’s history in South Africa?

• Why is history an important topic for psychology?

• Shouldn’t we cover the definition of psychology,

rather than its history?
 Introduction

Psychology is the scientific study of the mind,

mental processes and [human] behaviour
(Weiten, 2018).
 Introduction
• Why is it important to discuss the history of psychology in South Africa?

• This question allows us to engage with how the past comes to shape and
influence the present.

• Knowledge production = the production of knowledge about psychology in

South Africa, which informs how we practice psychology through teaching,
research, psychotherapy, psychometric assessments etc.
 Introduction
• Naidoo (1996) argues that the history of knowledge psychology has produced, at an
international and local level is:

1. steeped in Western/Eurocentric values;

2. and, promotes a positivist-empirical mode of scientific investigation.

• What does this mean?

• What does it mean that, historically, psychology has produced knowledge that is
Western/Eurocentric and based on positivism, and that this knowledge has been
adopted universally, in South Africa and everywhere else.
 Introduction
• 2 key characteristic features of psychological knowledge:

1. Western/Eurocentric values = knowledge that reflects the interests and

ideas of white, heterosexual, middle class, and educated American and
European societies.

2. Positivist-empirical science = knowledge is only considered scientific,

valid, true and factual when it is produced under conditions that are
observable, objective, highly controlled and quantified.
 Introduction
• What does psychology’s Western/Eurocentric and positivist
knowledge mean for you, and the social, cultural, economic
and political context from which you come?

• Is the knowledge psychology produces relevant to your life,

with respect to your race, gender, class position, sexuality,
nationality, political views, religious affiliation, ethnicity etc.?
 Introduction
• For example, mainstream psychology which is taught at
undergraduate and postgraduate levels is loosely based on
Western/Eurocentric values and a positivist model of scientific
inquiry.

• This means that psychology carries the tendency to

decontextualise your experiences and subjectivities, should you
fail to question and interrogate from where this knowledge comes,
in the first place, and its usefulness for your current social reality.
 Introduction
• 2 histories to consider:
1. The history of psychology
2. The history of South Africa

• 2 key historical determinants that shaped South

Africa:
1. Racism
2. Apartheid
 Introduction

• How did psychology fit into apartheid?

• Was psychology complicit in promoting

apartheid and racism or did psychology
challenge this system and its racist ideology?
 History of South African Psychology
• The history of psychology in South Africa can be divided in
two important periods, which represent noticeable shifts in
the political landscape of South Africa:

1. South African Psychology pre-1994

2. South African Psychology post-1994
South African Psychology pre-1994
The main features:
1. South Africa pre-1994 – an apartheid state.

2. Psychology took up a humanitarian role.

3. Psychology’s authorisation of racism.

4. Psychology documented white people’s lived experiences whilst

ignoring black people.
 South African Psychology pre-1994
5. Psychology generated a racially skewed process of knowledge
production and training.

6. Psychology produced racially defined diagnostic systems – bantu

hysteria versus depression.

7. Psychology objectified black people as the negative ‘Other’.

8. Psychology’s major concern – ‘poor white people’.

 South African Psychology pre-1994

Why did South African psychology not resist apartheid?

1. South African psychologists’ indoctrinated into

systems of knowledge & ideologies that left them little
room to criticise and challenge racism.

2. The majority of psychologists were white and middle

class, and they benefitted from apartheid's racism.
 South African Psychology pre-1994

3. Black psychologist represented under 10% of

registered psychologists, and so they did not have a
significant number to create a strong resistance.

4. The eugenics movement embraced and supported by

psychology during apartheid = ideas that black people
are genetically inferior to white people.
 South African Psychology pre-1994
5. The ‘Extension of the University Education Act No. 45
of 1959’ – access to the best universities in terms of
funding and resources reserved for white students
only.

6. The psychology curriculum was complicit in

reproducing racism
 South African Psychology pre-1994
7. The Psychological Institute of the Republic of South
Africa had a say in the content and curriculum of
psychology programmes at universities.

8. The Publications Act No.42 of 1974 – banned more

than 18 000 books from universities because they
encouraged critical thinking that could challenge
apartheid and racism.
 South African Psychology post-1994

• 1994 – South Africa’s first ever democratic election.

• The end of apartheid and institutionalised racism.

• Post-1994 – a period of hope and much needed change.

• Expectations for psychology to implement changes to its practice.

 South African Psychology post-1994
The main features:
1. Psychology side-stepping the subject of race and racism.

2. Reforming psychology – at a professional and institutional level.

3. Removing organised psychology from any ties with apartheid racism.

4. The creation of new organisations – PsySSA (the Psychological Society

of South Africa).
 South African Psychology post-1994
5. Academic reform through research and publishing – shifting the production of knowledge
to represent voices that were silenced, marginalised and excluded during apartheid.

6. New forms of marginalisation:

(i) low rates of publishing from the minority of black academics in psychology;

(ii) black academics stationed at disadvantaged universities where research and publication is
not given priority;

(iii) black academics burdened with unusually large volumes of students which left them little
time for research and publishing.

(iv) English the medium of publication which largely worked to exclude black academics
because they were not first language speakers of English.
 South African Psychology post-1994

7. The continued use of Western/Eurocentric

knowledge in psychology.

8. The racialised nature of professional

psychology training programmes.
 South African Psychology post-1994

In summary

• Substantial barriers remain in removing racist

ideologies, which effect the practice of
psychology.