Nhlakanipho Hlengwa

In this paper, I argue that African traditional medicine (ATM),as practiced in a southern African context,involves a relational and interconnected inquiry into conditionsof disease, and this investigation is grounded in an African philosophical worldview that integrates human, environmental, and spiritual dimensions (relational and interconnected thesis). Second, its goal is healing,rather than curing, particularly as healing encompasses not only the relief of disease symptoms but also the restoration of a person’s social and spiritual relationships (healing thesis). Finally, its core business is to understand and explain the circumstances and cause(s) of pathological conditions, often through methods such as divination (understanding and explanation thesis)

In this article, the author propose and argue for a Southern African-centred account of mental disorder that defines this mental condition in both evaluative and causal terms. It argues that mental illness must be understood through value judgements and primary causal factors. According to this account, for a condition to qualify as a mental disorder, it must meet three individually necessary and together sufficient criteria: (1) it must affect the mental state of an individual (beyond normal emotional responses), (2) it must be evaluated negatively by both an individual and the community and (3) there must be an identifiable non-physical cause(s). Contribution: This article proposes a Southern African account of mental disorder, understood as a pathological condition, that differs from existing theories of disease, namely naturalism, normativism and hybridism in the philosophy of medicine. It draws on the cultural perspective of amafufunyana within the Southern African context and explores the implications of this account for consultation practice.