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# Ancestrality and symbolic reparation: african healing practices confronting historical traumas
## Main Author:
- Full Name

Arthur Gnabro Gnahoua

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Arthur Gnabro Gnahoua. Ancestrality and symbolic reparation: african healing practices confronting historical traumas Main Author: -Full Name. 2025. hal-04996161

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# Ancestrality and symbolic reparation :
african healing practices confronting historical traumas

**Main Author:**

- Full Name : Arthur Gnabro Gnahoua

- Academic Affiliation : Master in General Health Psychology, Catholic University of Valencia, Valencia, Spain

- Correspondence Email : arthgnabro@mail.ucv.es

- Research Areas : Pastoral Psychology, Clinical Psychopathology, Therapeutic Narratives, Cultural Resilience, African Identity Reconstruction.

- Additional Note : Catholic priest and clinical psychology researcher.

**Abstract**

This interdisciplinary study explores the role of ancestral healing practices in addressing historical and intergenerational trauma across African societies and diasporic communities. Challenging Western trauma paradigms that often marginalize spiritual and communal dimensions of suffering, the article positions African traditions—where ancestors act as mediators of physical, psychological, and social harmony—as decolonized frameworks for trauma recovery. Through case studies from Xhosa, Zulu, and Ndembu cultures, alongside diasporic practices in Haiti and Brazil, the analysis highlights rituals such as divination, spirit possession, and collective ceremonies as acts of symbolic reparation for slavery, colonialism, and systemic violence. The study critiques the limitations of Eurocentric therapeutic models and advocates for hybrid clinical approaches that honor Indigenous epistemologies. Bridging pastoral psychology, therapeutic narratives, and ecological ethics, it argues that ancestral healing fosters resilience by restoring interconnectedness between the living, the dead, and the land.

*Keywords* : ancestral healing, intergenerational trauma, African spirituality, decolonization, symbolic reparation, cultural resilience, pastoral psychology, therapeutic narratives, Ubuntu.

**INTRODUCTION**

In African cosmologies, ancestors are neither relics of the past nor abstract metaphors; they are dynamic agents of healing, bridging generational divides and embodying collective memory. While Western trauma theories, anchored in individualized diagnoses like PTSD, struggle to address communal and spiritual dimensions of suffering, African healing systems—as observed among the Xhosa, Zulu, and Ndembu—integrate ancestors as co-participants in restoring fractured identities and social ecologies. Drawing on my research in pastoral psychology and therapeutic narratives, this article examines how rituals such as ukuthwasa (shamanic initiation) and intlombe (communal trance ceremonies) reclaim agency in contexts marked by slavery, colonialism, and globalization. By centering Indigenous epistemologies, the study advances a critique of therapeutic imperialism while proposing culturally grounded models of resilience.
# 1. ANCESTORS AS THERAPEUTIC MEDIATORS

## 1.1 Diagnosis and Transmission of Ancestral Knowledge

In Zulu ukuthwasa initiations, psychic crises are reinterpreted as ancestral calls to communal service. A case documented by Harris (2017) details a trainee sangoma (healer) receiving plant names in Latin—a language unknown to her—through dreams, exemplifying non-Western modes of knowledge transmission. Similarly, Ndembu healers invoke ancestors during nocturnal rituals to diagnose illnesses linked to unresolved familial conflicts (Bubandt, 2008). These practices, analyzed through the lens of therapeutic narratives, reveal how ancestral communication transcends individual pathology, repositioning trauma as a collective call to justice.

## 1.2 Community Rituals and Social Reintegration

Unlike Western psychotherapy's focus on the atomized self, Xhosa intlombe ceremonies employ drumming and dance to induce collective trance, channeling blocked energies into reparative dialogues (Sandlana & Mtetwa, 2008). In Northern Uganda, ajwaki healers pacify jok spirits tied to war trauma through offerings, reintegrating survivors into kinship networks (Allen & Storm, 2012). These rituals, resonant with pastoral psychology's emphasis on spiritual-communal care, illustrate healing as a relational process that restores moral and ecological balance.

# 2. INTERGENERATIONAL TRAUMA : REPAIRING FRACTURED MEMORIES

## 2.1 The Legacy of Slavery and Colonial Violence

The transatlantic slave trade severed ancestral ties, embedding what Motahane et al. (2021) term a “spiritual wound” within diasporic consciousness. Wilkins et al. (2013) identify hypervigilance and institutional distrust as lingering symptoms of “post-enslavement stress syndrome,” transmitted through silenced family histories. In Haiti, retirer dèyè rituals detoxify ancestral bonds forged in colonial exploitation, while Brazilian Candomblé ceremonies reinvent Yoruba lineages within Afro-Brazilian identities (Gallego, 2020). These acts of cultural resilience exemplify how diasporas reimagine ancestry as a scaffold for identity reconstruction.

## 2.2 Narrative Resistance and Symbolic Reparation

My fieldwork with diasporic communities reveals how marginalized groups use art, oral histories, and altar-building (e.g., photographs of anonymous African ancestors) to transform absence into presence. Such practices align with therapeutic narrative frameworks, where storytelling becomes a conduit for reclaiming agency. As Joanne Ablack (2000) notes, these creative acts are not mere coping mechanisms but radical assertions of belonging in hostile sociopolitical landscapes.
# 3. DECOLONIZING THERAPEUTIC PRACTICES

## 3.1 Limits of Eurocentric Universalism

Western trauma models, rooted in Holocaust studies and biomedical individualism, pathologize non-Western phenomenology. In Uganda, for instance, survivors' narratives of jok spirit possession are misdiagnosed as psychosis, erasing their cosmological significance (Allen & Storm, 2012). Craps (2013) argues that such epistemic violence perpetuates therapeutic imperialism, negating Indigenous paradigms where the self is interwoven with ancestors and land.

## 3.2 Toward Hybrid Healing Frameworks

South African practitioners exemplify decolonial innovation by blending narrative psychology with ancestral dream interpretation. In one case, a woman's depression, framed through recurring river dreams, was resolved via a ritual cleansing of apartheid-era familial trauma (Sefanyetso, 2020). This synergy, informed by my training in health psychology, underscores the urgency of clinical models that honor both scientific rigor and spiritual ontologies.

# 4. ANCESTRAL HEALING AND ECOLOGICAL ETHICS

## 4.1 Land as a Living Archive

Ancestors inhabit ecosystems as much as human lineages. Achikeobi-Lewis (2024) documents rituals where dance liberates traumatic memories stored in rivers polluted by slavery. For Mali's Dogon, droughts signify ancestral displeasure, necessitating environmental reparations. These practices, analyzed through pastoral psychology's ecological turn, redefine healing as a multispecies endeavor.

## 4.2 Ubuntu and Transgenerational Solidarity

The Ubuntu ethic—"I am because we are"—guides South Africa's Dual Healing practitioners, who condition therapy on communal accountability (Sefanyetso, 2020). A healer's refusal to treat a violent client until ancestral apologies were performed mirrors my research on identity reconstruction through relational ethics. This holistic vision bridges personal healing, social justice, and environmental stewardship.

# CONCLUSION

Ancestral healing is not a retreat into tradition but a dynamic praxis of resistance and reparation. By centering African epistemologies, this study challenges Global North therapeutic hegemony while offering models for trauma recovery that integrate spirituality, ecology, and communal justice. As Achikeobi-Lewis (2024) asserts, freeing "traumatized waters" emancipates future generations—a vision aligning with my interdisciplinary commitment to cultural resilience and narrative liberation.
## ABOUT THE AUTHOR

**Arthur Gnabro Gnahoua** holds a Master's degree in General Health Psychology from the Catholic University of Valencia (Spain). As a Catholic priest and researcher, his work focuses on the intersection of faith, culture, and mental health, with a specialization in pastoral psychology, clinical psychopathology, therapeutic narratives, and cultural resilience. His research highlights the role of ancestral healing practices and traditional African epistemologies in addressing historical trauma and reconstructing African identities. Committed to decolonial approaches in mental health, he advocates for hybrid therapeutic models that integrate spirituality, communal ethics, and ecological justice.

## References

Ablack, J. (2000). Body psychotherapy, trauma and the Black woman client. International Journal of Psychotherapy, 5(2), 145–151.

Achikeobi-Lewis, O. (2024). Healing the waters. Performance Philosophy, 9(2), 152–166.

Allen, T., & Storm, L. (2012). Quests for therapy in northern Uganda: Healing at Laropi revisited. Journal of Eastern African Studies, 6(1), 22–46.

Berg, A. (2003). Ancestor reverence and mental health in South Africa. Transcultural Psychiatry, 40(2), 194–207.

Craps, S. (2013). Beyond Eurocentrism: Trauma theory in the global age. In G. Buelens, S. Durrant, & R. Eaglestone (Eds.), The future of trauma theory (pp. 45–61). Routledge.

Gallego, M. (2020). Cultures of healing: Spirituality, interdependence and resistance in the African diaspora. African and Black Diaspora : An International Journal, 13(1), 68–79.

Harris, A. J. (2017). A phenomenological study into African refugee men's wellness seeking behaviours, inclusive of community, spirit and ancestral connections [Doctoral dissertation, University of Pretoria].

Manda, C., & Magezi, V. (2016). The use of spiritual resources to cope with trauma in daily existence. In die Skriflig, 50(1), 1–10.
https://doi.org/10.4102/ids.v50i1.2079

Motahane, N., Nyambi, O., & Makombe, R. (2021). Rooting routes to trans-Atlantic African identities: The metaphor of female descendancy in Yaa Gyasi's Homegoing. African Identities, 19(1), 17–30.

Sefanyetso, K. (2020). Dual healing modality in psychological services : Experiences of Black healer-therapists in Johannesburg, South Africa [Master's thesis, University of the Witwatersrand].

Sotobe, S. F. (2014). The traumatized African clergies dealing therapeutically with traumatized African families [Doctoral dissertation, University of Pretoria].

Wilkins, E. J., Whiting, J. B., Watson, M. F., Russon, J. M., & Moncrief, A. M. (2013). Residual effects of slavery: What clinicians need to know. Contemporary Family Therapy, 35, 14–28.