Special Hearings — Mental Health Workshop — 1997-11-20

UNKNOWN: You have made a bold statement that our Committee is a stepchild of the Commission, we will write this under your name for the next Commission meeting so that people can deal with it.
 You see, regarding your comments, first of all really I want to say for me, being in the Commission, I have come to appreciate the problems regarding the status of psychology and psychiatry as a profession in this country.
 When we started we went down to Durban to meet with Judge Mall, who is the Chairperson of the amnesty committee, just talking about the role of psychologists in that committee, looking at both people who will be victims there and perpetrators.
 His responses were clearly that you know, this will interfere with the legal process.  It is going to create a lot of confusion, that was his response.
 And whatever recommendations we have put forward regarding a significant role of mental health professionals, the committee has not responded to that and for me, that has shown that the status, I am pleased that SAISA President is here, even from the government's side the status of psychology is not I should think, it is not good enough out there in public.
 I should think mainly it is due to the fact that it is one profession which really was reduced to a profession for a few, for the elite and which was developed as of no use to the larger community and as a result not only I would say people have suffered, even the very people who dominated and possessed the profession.
 And then also a second point you made.  I said not only within the commission, but also in the government's side, many times Thulani when he started, he was designated a mental health specialist here, many times he came up with very good recommendations as to what should be done for witnesses and so on and those recommendations were turned down.
 Whenever commission representatives were meeting with government, they will take out anything which has got something to do with psychosocial support because they felt you know, it wasn't understood.  Some of the problems we have experienced here, they reflect the problem with this profession.
 I wanted to say this during the SAISA conference but I couldn't get there.  I am pleased to have had an opportunity to say this. 
 Then you raised also another important point when you say people who appear before the Commission who say I am sorry or express an apology of some kind, they then get a special treatment.  Within the commission, I know people who have started writing like Graham Hayes, criticising the commission, looking at - I should think we need to look carefully at the interface between religion, psychology and politics.
 And that is how I should think the commission has suffered because of that.  There are quite a number of people within the commission who come from a religious sector and they are informed by certain (indistinct) as to how to you know, deal with the wrongs of the past and in a way that is much more understood than what you will expect when you are formed by psychological (indistinct) or philosophical framework.
 I don't know whether you would like to comment?

PROF NICHOLAS: There is a rebuttal to that somewhat in that in studies of testimony, I have experienced that a lot of just ordinary people express the pain and the trauma that they have suffered in psychological terms and I think through the underdevelopment of psychology for various reasons, maybe not only just that it wasn't seen as not useful because the previous government excelled at expanding anything that might not be useful to the popular, so I wouldn't go for that, but for me the main issue is that more often than not, people have testified have expressed their pain in psychological terms, but historically and at that point have not had any access to any kind of professional mental health practitioner to assist them, either at the time of the trauma or subsequently.
 Part of the reason is that there is very little access to mental health services outside of urban areas for example, and I think there is a strong basis for the commission to recommend that those mental health services should be mandatory in rural areas where  they may be situated at hospitals, day hospitals or community centres.
 I am not making a plea for extra work particularly for psychologists, because I think we need to reconceptualise those divisions as well and to see how where there is more human service orientation under which a range of professionals would work cooperatively to assist people.
 So for me an issue is that many of the people who are coming for reparation, wherever they are located, they have no access to any kind of mental health, whether it is in relation to the trauma or elsewhere and that there should be some obligation within the reparatory process to make that just available, to say a decision needs to be taken that in hospitals there is somebody who can provide that.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you.  I was trying to organise a programme.  I think for time sake we better move on.  Can I just raise an important point that Dr (indistinct) has just made,  Cooper not (indistinct) about he is on the war trail and he is raising a good point about really there being a case for the psychologists in question to ask the Professional Board of psychology in terms of undermining the credibility of health professionals engaging in testimony which is unscientific and unprofessional and attempting to defeat the ends of justice.
 There might be an issue for that, I think we have to discuss it within the Truth Commission, but he is also offering his support as the representative from that body to take up the case.  I think we shall get back to you on that issue, but thank you for raising that, it is important.
 Thank you for your testimonies, thank you for your time.
 I think programme wise we are going to have, we are going to ask Paul Saunderguard to have his half an hour and then we are going to move Dr Bhana, is that all right, after lunch?  Is that okay, or else we will have a cold lunch basically and then we will snip half an hour off the preparation for the groups at the end of the day.  I think that will be quite quick.
 I think we will formulate questions and just bring that to the group.  Is that all right, you don't look too happy.  Thank you.  Paul Saunderguard.