A case study exploring the preferred psychotherapeutic interventions used by Black-African educational psychologists

• Main Author: Afonso, Jennifer Catherine
• Published: 2011
• Subjects: Cultural psychiatry; Cross-cultural counseling; Educational psychology study and teaching; Training of educational pyschologists
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10210/3626

M. Ed. === This instrumental case study explores the preferred psychotherapeutic interventions used by a purposive sample of Black-African educational psychologists and intern psychologists who had graduated from the same university between 1998 and 2008. The sample also includes the therapeutic interventions lecturer at the university since previous research carried out at the university revealed that Black Educational Psychology students are at a much higher risk of dropping out of the master's course (Holmes, 2006). This research inquiry aims at gaining a better understanding of the therapies that Black-African Educational Psychologists use in their practice of Educational Psychology. The research is done within a critical paradigm using a social constructivist theoretical framework to seek an understanding of the world in which these educational psychologists live and work (Creswell, 2007). The researcher uses an interpretive approach to explore the data on the psychotherapeutic interventions used by the group of Black-African educational psychologists in their respective practices. The research sample comprises eleven Black-African educational psychologists and intern psychologists and the therapeutic interventions lecturer at the University. Once informed consent was obtained, data were generated by means of eleven incomplete sentence questionnaires and six semi-structured interviews which were captured using an audio-recorder. Data were analysed according to the steps outlined by Charmaz (2006; 2008) in her grounded theory approach to qualitative research. Thus, initial data sets were coded using initial and selective coding and then analysed simultaneously using the constant comparative method which generated findings which fall under four sub-themes namely: 1) Using psychotherapeutic interventions trained in, 2) Adapting Eurocentric interventions, 3) Using Indigenous Knowledge and the 4) Need to advance learning. These sub-themes were integrated to form a Culture-sensitive African perspective to psychotherapeutic intervention in South Africa, which became the overarching theme of this study. The themes were confirmed by sending a verification concept map to five participants.