Therapeutic interventions for bereavement: Learning from Ugandan therapists

Abstract

This article contributes to the development of indigenous knowledge around therapeutic interventions for bereavement in non-western settings. Interventions are explored through 18 qualitative interviews with indigenous therapists in the Sub-Saharan African country of Uganda. Aspects of the therapeutic process are examined along with clients’ presenting problem and the ways in which clients make sense of their loss and express their grief. Ugandan therapists identified contradictions between their indigenous practices and western assumptions embedded in bereavement counselling theory and practice. These indigenous accounts indicate ways in which existing therapeutic approaches might best be modified for use in non-western and pluralistic societies.