Encountering the other: Jungian analysts and traditional healers in South Africa

This series of articles includes contributions from South African practitioners at the International Congress of Analytical Psychology in Vienna in 2019. Peter Amman outlines the history of the project for collaboration between traditional healers and Jungian analysts from SAAJA. It began with with Jung’s interest in African culture, his colonial attitudes are highlighted as well as his true openness to let himself be transformed by his encounter with the “other”. When Peter met Nomfundo Mlisa, a clinical psychologist and traditional healer deeply interested in Jungian psychology, the project of a true dialogue between Jungian analysts and traditional African healers was born. The themes of umbilini/intuition and dreams were the first to be explored, from both traditional and Western perspectives. Fred Borchardt describes the political context. He mentions the social activist movement #RhodesMustFall, launched on 9 March 2015 and the shared desire to consider the impact of colonialism on indigenous healing systems. In Jungian circles is raised the question of apologies to people from African descent for the way they have been portrayed in Jungian literature. When trauma cannot be transformed, it is repeated. Nomfundo Lily-Rose Mlisa evokes the worldview of traditional practitioners, opening up the possibility of peaceful encounters between professionals from different backgrounds. Thanks to Johari’s Window process, a call for introspection is launched, it aims to facilitate encounters with the other, within ourselves and between ourselves. The notion of rainbow therapy is developed, making Jungian analysts and traditional healers from South Africa pioneers in the development and dissemination of this concept. The final talk by Renee Ramsden resumes the dialogue of a group of practitioners from both disciplines, who recounted their respective journeys to becoming healers, which highlighted similarities. Finding common ground and mutual respect generated a profound healing effect and enabled them to consider a relational therapeutic scheme that could function as an ecological ‘seed bomb’. Finally, our authors give an update on the development and the news of their encounters, from 2019 to 2024. The videos of these encounters can be viewed at: https://jungsouthernafrica.co.za/traditional-health-practitioners/