How old is s k oppong in ghana 10
However, publications on the history of psychology hardly include a discussion of the history of psychology in Africa. This is to say that an individual is expected to evolve towards an ideal of a responsible, independent person full of wisdom and knowledge about existential challenges of living as well as of reasonable material wealth. When is historiography Whiggish?
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The theological origins of Western philosophy and science. This is to say that in the absence of a university in Ghana, it is highly improbable for modern psychology to have been introduced or perhaps it would have taken longer than it did. IUPsyS global resource pp. China smartphones online shopping Learning of a trade and business ethics: Voices of continental African psychologists.
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Thus, this paper discusses the current zeitgeist in the study and application of psychology in Africa. Wiredutherefore, argues that the seat of thought is the brain and that thinking cannot go on in a human being without the brain. While the UK influence was felt through pioneers such as Fiscian, Bulley, Opoku, and Danquah as cited in Oppong, a because they each received some of their postgraduate education there, the US influence on Ghanaian psychology have been through the availability of US textbooks and curriculum comparisons.
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Calls have been made to indigenize psychology in Ghana. It has also been the topic of research by scholars from several disciplines in addition to food scientists and lactation management specialists. This academic tradition could be traced to this tradition at the University of Sankore. This is to say that there were intellectual developments that can logically be placed within the historical evolution of psychology in Africa as was the case in Europe.
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23.03.2018 - This has resulted in a very narrow and pretentious picture of the history of philosophy. The Akan concept of person. Mate-Kole in terms of increasing the number of PhDs trained and graduated by the Department of Psychology at UGL and his encouragement to PhD students to publish during the doctoral studies; he has also contributed towards efforts at indigenizing psychology in Ghana as well as participation in the formation and steering of PAPU. African Affairs, 77
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25.03.2018 - The mention of sociology is important here because it was in the Department of Sociology that psychology was first taught as a university course in From that day on the girl is addressed as mother to signify her new status. This way it is possible to consider the indigenous interpretations of the human kind as opposed to the received interpretations contained in the current Western diagnostic schemes. Like other long-established cultures the world over, the Akan have developed a rich conceptual system complete with metaphysical, moral, and epistemological aspects. Abraham, Kwesi Wiredu and Kwame Gyekye. Thus, the inclusion criterion is the focus on the timeless subject matter of human nature, human mind, human soul or human behaviour, regardless of the varying meanings assigned to them at various times in history.
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28.03.2018 - This list is, by no means, exhaustive as it focuses more on those who had some form of Christian education. Leaheyp. The work of the African historiographer is to contribute to historical scholarship through addressing the epistemic injustice and the denial of an Africa with a past. Studies in race emancipation. This paper was discussed at the first senior seminar held in the Goody library since he passed away in July and it begins with a prologue which is partly a eulogy to his opus and influence as mentor.
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29.01.2018 - To this extent, Amo has influenced and will continue to influence Ghanaian psychology and psychologists. Thus, in the case of Australian psychologists, the philosophers also played an active role of the moving out of psychology of the society. Note the first European-styled school was established in though it became inactive by until it was reactivated by Capitein in and saw steady growth into early s. The new history of psychology. This implies that theology, philosophy and science including psychology have also been related and would continue to be related even if not as directly as before. Would be expected to independently carry out this task; supporting the children and others. The purpose is to structure the discussions around certain major events that can mark the transition from one period to the other.
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Familial Roles and Social Transformations: By focusing on old people in sub-Saharan Africa, the author illustrates the need for comparative analyses of how culture, sociopolitical systems, and sweeping social change shape lives, interconnections, opportunities, and constraints among older people.
In such work, gender contrasts are critical. Because of their position in reproduction and marital patterns, women in sub-Saharan Africa have tended to use lineal strategies, focused on children and grandchildren, in contrast to the more lateral, partner-oriented strategies followed by men.
Migration into urban areas and the AIDS pandemic have left many older women in charge of grandchildren in rural areas with inadequate resources and infrastructure.
Shaped by traditional values, norms, and roles in their early lives, they currently find many expectations unmet. Indeed, some of the traditional norms that ensured respect, support, reciprocity, and embeddedness may now leave many older people, especially women, isolated, weakened, and victims of illness and violence.
Social capital and systems of care: This paper further attempts a task of which the usefulness has recently been advocated by van Staveren The topic fits broadly into issues treated by social scientists of several disciplinary persuasions and in different time periods and locations; that is linkages between social relationships and affiliation on the one hand and physical and mental health and survival on the other, expressed by some as a positive relationship between social capital and health capital.
Care is clearly a critical intervening variable. It is concerned in particular with evidence of what are perceived as escalating diminutions and disruptions in parental care, - processes which have profound implications for infants, children and human development and its sustainability.
Indeed they are critical for future national development. It is also concerned with the identification of easy to use and adaptable research tools, which can be used to build simple micro, role models operating within cultural and social systems, using basic ethnographic methods indicating relative levels of social and material capital — available resources and relationships and which can facilitate comparative empirical field work, designed to test related hypotheses, regarding disruptions and breakdowns of parental care, and their causes and consequences, in contrasting socio-cultural and economic contexts.
It accordingly first briefly considers some points made in van Staveren's recent research paper on Social Capital and Care and then goes on to focus on some earlier and more recent findings from Ghana.
These include a cursory look at a now classic ethnography, Meyer Fortes the Web of Kinship, which graphically displays the characteristics under study, that is dense "social capital" and the care surrounding infants and young children, as they were observed in a rural, northern Ghanaian community of the Tallensi half a century ago Fortes It then goes on to summarize and briefly consider some recent findings and discussions of several Ghanaian essays, which focus on care disrupted and in increasing jeopardy and the implications for child survival and development.
Globalization and the Disruption of Mother Care. Research Review NS It has also been the topic of research by scholars from several disciplines in addition to food scientists and lactation management specialists.
This essay, though short and perforce.. Infants' Entitlement and Babies' Capabilities: A High Price to Pay: Seven Roles of Women: An explosion of paid work. The numbers of women seeking paid work is rising throughout the world, and another M are expected to join the world's workforce by the year Charts the global picture of women at work, and shows how their opportunities are limited by recession, their role as mothers, education discrimination, and the competition of men.
Some Aspects of Anthropological Contributions. Jan Fertility in Developing Countries. This chapter is concerned with some of the advantages which might accrue to economic research and policy-making based upon it in the field of fertility behaviour, if more insights, both conceptual and methodological, were drawn from other disciplinary approaches.
The particular approaches used here are those of social anthropology or comparative family sociology. Economic Models and Having Children: Some Evidence from Kwahu, Ghana.
Considers aspects of reproduction and fertility among the Kwahu of southern Ghana, particularly among the members of a lineage in one rural town characterised by profound socioeconomic change and differentiation.
The main features of economic models of rational decision-making with respect to fertility are outlined, noting the findings of several Ghanaian studies which have attempted to link changing patterns of costs and benefits involved in kin and conjugal family ties with changes in fertility and parental role expectations.
Economic models are shown to require increased sophistication: From Love To Institution: Indications of Change in Akan Marriage. Examines the incidence of love in the sense of a strong emotional and erotic attachment within marriage among the Akan matrilineal elite of Ghana, and the extent to which the social context of marriage is conducive to such love.
Research is presented to support the theory that a person is more able to enjoy love within marriage when the social system does not compel spouses to remain married e. The traditional Akan system provided such support, but modernization social and spatial mobility is weakening it.
Consequently, a slow but perceptible change in Akan marriage is evident among certain subgroups. Dec Love and Attraction. In this paper a series of hypotheses linking urban residence and education with changes taking place in norms regarding family size are operationalized and their validity is demonstrated using data from single, male Ghanaian students.
The intervening variables which are conceptualized and measured in terms of ordinal scales are: The dependent variable is attitude toward family size. No direct correlation is observed between the independent and dependent variables.
The types of attitudes toward conjugal family closure and jointness of the marital relationship are seen to be crucial intervening variables - the links in a chain of domestic change already observed but, as of yet, inadequately explained and documented in the elite Ghanaian setting.
Family type and size: Several studies have recently been carried out to relate different types of conjugal and family ties to differential fertility and fertility-related behaviour. Data collected include attitudes to ideal family size, contraceptive practice and actual numbers of children born.
The crumbling of high fertility supports: Female teachers in Ghana are a socially and spatially mobile segment of a society in rapid transition. But the fact that high fertility is expected of them while they themselves cling to traditional ideals creates stress in changing socio-economic context.
Retrograde Steps in Ghana. A Study of Norms among Ghanaian Students. In this paper data from a sample of Ghanaian University students is used to test the cross-cultural validity of the hypothesis that jointness of the conjugal role relationship is associated with small family size norms and segregation with large family size norms Hawthorn, Approval of jointness and segregation is measured by means of an ordinal scale based upon responses to eight different statements about the division of labour, decision-making and finances.
The data support the hypothesis as there is a significant correlation between attitudes to family size and jointness of the conjugal relationship. Attitudes toward family type and family size in West Africa: According to Haque, p.
Earlier, in the 14th century, psychologia referred to a branch of pneumatology, the study of spiritual beings and substances and in the 16th century, the term anthropologia was coined that branched off into psychologia, the study of human mind and somatologia, the study of human body.
In the 18th century, the influence of empiricism and rationalism paved the way for scientific psychology. According to Bemile, Amo drew evidence from the fields of philosophy and medicine in preparing his thesis, the two fields which are considered the roots of modern psychology.
Though Amo accepts that there is something we might call a mind, he maintained the argument that it is the body that perceives and feels as opposed to the mind; this is a philosophical view espoused by another Ghanaian philosopher, Kwasi Wiredu, years later.
His was a treatise that would naturally fall within philosophy of mind today but is also capable of being meaningfully studied in psychology or even a variety of physiology and anatomy p.
For instance, Hatfield, p. For reasons that have not been fully explored, calls for a more empirical, physics-emulating psychology came thick and fast around The Swiss naturalist Charles Bonnet published his Essai de psychologie in Each of them called for application of the empirical attitudes found in other branches of science, whether physiology, botany, entomology, or Newtonian science, to the domain of the mental.
Luccio reports the term psychologia was coined around by Marcus Marulus — and later in, in a publication by Johan Thomas Freig, psychologia was presented as one of the 6 subdivisions of Physics.
Again, Brock a has also suggested that marked the beginning of modern history and as a result, any psychology that came into being after this date can rightly be recognized as modern. This also means that the contributions by Amo were, indeed, contributions to modern psychology in its early beginnings.
Perhaps, it is time Amo is included in undergraduate psychology textbooks. Wiredu, therefore, argues that the seat of thought is the brain and that thinking cannot go on in a human being without the brain.
So how has Amo influenced psychology in Ghana? Much of his life history is unknown, particularly after he returned home. Danquah as cited in Twumasi, , W. Abraham, Kwesi Wiredu and Kwame Gyekye.
To this extent, Amo has influenced and will continue to influence Ghanaian psychology and psychologists. Further questions need to be adequately answered. Were there any scholarly interactions among these scholars in the Gold Coast?
What was the content of the interactions? What are the implications of their interactions for understanding human soul or mind? Indeed, there is more that can be derived from this rich intellectual tradition in Ghana by Ghanaian psychologists.
It is worth noting that there were other learned Ghanaians of the 18th and 19th centuries who received Christian-patterned education see Table 4. This can be even extended to those who studied law as law involved the study of philosophers and their philosophical positions on law.
However, such studies should not be an uncritical, celebratory account of their work. Adapted from Asante, Assimeng, p. This list is, by no means, exhaustive as it focuses more on those who had some form of Christian education.
It is important to note that there were Islamic schools in the Gold Coast in the s Hiskett, That Gold Coast Muslim scholars were not listed in the table does not imply that there were no such scholars but that further research is needed to prove otherwise.
Also note that among those who studied abroad, only Amo, Capitein, and Protten had all their education in Europe as the rest had their foundational education sometimes at the college level in the Gold Coast before obtaining their advanced education elsewhere.
Note the first European-styled school was established in though it became inactive by until it was reactivated by Capitein in and saw steady growth into early s. Another important fact is that Mensah Sarbah and colleagues established Fanti Public Schools Limited in which gave birth to the Mfantsipim School in However, it is important to also note that the first school established by a Gold Coaster Ghanaian was the one set up by Rev.
It is important for Ghanaian psychologists to identify and study works of some of these 18th and 19th century Ghanaian scholars. Nwoye, p. African Psychology is… concerned with the study and understanding of the psychological significance of the oral traditions and metaphors of the great peoples of Africa…African Psychology is also the psychology of the human significance or the psychological capital of African written literature in which are embedded a variety of mind-shaping categories and from which can be sourced the truths of human and social behaviour that nurture individual and communal attitudes and values in Africa.
Two illustrations will suffice. In this page Ph. Twumasi, p. The psychological foundations of personality, Danquah wrote, are to be found in three elements—always in the process of growth—that constitute the human mind.
These are cognition, the mental element by which we know and apprehend; conation, normally the physical condition antecedent to a bodily movement, the lowest form of which is the uneasiness one feels in the presence of an object of apprehension, and its function is the desire to effect a change in the external world.
Affection or feeling is the element of pleasure or displeasure that accompanies action or desire, following closely on the occurrence of thought or cognition and conation… Development by feeling, though conscious, does not amount to consciousness of an end or purpose since impulsive activity lacks foresight.
An individual always moves towards an end, and best realizes himself by achieving the ideal end; and the significance of a self-conscious agent's activity is to be found in its ethical import… The development of personality, however, does not proceed independently of the rational element, even if formal reason by itself cannot be accepted as fully expressive of the manning of good in explaining moral responsibility.
An individual person is a moral personality which is neither feeling nor reason merely, but a self-conscious, self-objectifying agent whose conscious activity has reference to an organic system of values conceived as his ideal end and for him absolutely.
Okra soul, Sunsum spirit, and Honam body. He further argued that both Okra and Sunsum are immaterial whereas Honam is material. More importantly, Gyekye cites J.
Indeed, a careful reading of ideas of Kwame Gyekye philosopher, J. Danquah, the lawyer, philosopher, and sociologist as cited in Twumasi, , K. This is to say that an individual is expected to evolve towards an ideal of a responsible, independent person full of wisdom and knowledge about existential challenges of living as well as of reasonable material wealth.
This may be summarized in Table 5. This bio-cultural theory of personality development provides a more useful framework for counselling, psychotherapy on existential problems, personality assessment, curriculum development, and assessment of successful outcomes of living than most of the Western theories of personality development.
It is worth then saying that so much philosophical psychology is contained in the philosophical and sociological works done by many early Gold Coast Ghanaian scholars which deserve qualitative research attention.
However, such a theory will have cross-cultural applications once psychologists elsewhere replace the developmental tasks with those salient in their cultural settings. Thus, this enterprise itself shows that indigenous psychology can have universal applications.
Modern-day psychology as an academic discipline taught at the University is traceable to the early schools established in the s. Nonetheless, the transition from the s and s to the s is equally unclear due to the same charge of incomplete records.
What is outstanding is the work by Jacobus Eliza Johannes Capitein — It needs emphasizing that Islamic schools were established in Begho near Wenchi in the Gold Coast in the s before the Portuguese school as well as an Islamic University in Dagbon in the northern territories of the Gold Coast in the s Hiskett, Again, a civil servant training school is reported to have already been established in the early s at Buna, west of the Black Volta in the Gold Coast to train Ashanti civil servants as well Hiskett, This further implies that the earliest form of non-indigenous education in the Gold Coast was also introduced by black Africans not Europeans.
However, there is nothing so unreal than to think of a distinct Christian or Islamic education because of the several centuries of interactions between the knowledge systems Brennan, ; Lauer, Another historical source suggests that in October, Rev.
Wildman of the Basel Mission began a school for the native Ghanaian children at Akropong whiles the first trained African Ghanaian teacher, David Asante — , was produced in in the Gold Coast Assimeng, ; Ofosu-Appiah, Other historical records indicate that the training of teacher-missionaries in Ghana began with the establishment of the Basel Seminary now Presbyterian College of Education in and the Accra Teacher Training College now Accra College of Education in by the Basel Mission and the government of the Gold Coast respectively Graham, So, there appear to be several possible dates of origin for the teaching and practice of psychology in Ghana.
Irrespective of whichever year one selects, the application of psychological knowledge particularly in formal education in Ghana is well over a century. However, given that applications of philosophical psychology preceded any of the above-mentioned dates, it is plausible to conclude that the application of psychology is as old as the people.
It is impossible to have a discussion of modern psychology education in Ghana without reference to the colonial rule and its demise. This is because colonial rule led to the establishment of modern universities in the various West Africa colonies.
And with the establishment of these universities, the teaching and practice of psychology could move forward more rapidly. This is to say that in the absence of a university in Ghana, it is highly improbable for modern psychology to have been introduced or perhaps it would have taken longer than it did.
It is possible to even suggest that because Achimota College gave way to the establishment of the University of the Gold Coast, perhaps university education began in Ghana in rather than in where the latter was officially opened.
Perhaps, it is interesting to note that some Ghanaian scholars knew about psychology before the University of Ghana was established. Essuman-Gwira Sekyi — is reported to have said that Africa could not expect to have continuous development if it followed an educational system based on the borrowing of alien sociology, psychology and physiology in March Asante, ; Oppong, a.
That Sekyi referred to psychology in meant that early Ghanaian scholars had learnt about psychology even before it became a university level course as cited in Asante, and so did J.
Danquah in his doctoral dissertation in as cited in Twumasi, Among the courses of study offered when the University of the Gold Coast began in October was Classics which involved some study of philosophy Agbodeka, Currently, the Departments of Classics and Philosophy have been merged into a single department at the University of Ghana.
Later, the Department of Sociology was established in from the then defunct School of African Studies established in and in, the Institute of Adult Education was also established Agbodeka, It is worth stressing here that the School of African Studies is not the same as the Institute of African Studies which was established later in The mention of sociology is important here because it was in the Department of Sociology that psychology was first taught as a university course in It can be deduced from this that philosophy was taught in Ghana in the late s as a university course and that by some form of educational psychology was also taught in Ghana as a university course.
It is, perhaps, important to also note that the University College of Cape Coast now University of Cape Coast was established in and affiliated to the University of Ghana to train teachers for the educational institutions Agbodeka, The possible role of the University of Cape Coast as a catalyst for the introduction of the university course in psychology at the University of Ghana has not received any serious attention.
The circumstances which led to the mounting of the psychology course at the Department of Sociology at the University of Ghana have also not been fully explored. In sum, it can be said that all of these developments prepared the grounds for the establishment of a department of psychology at the University of Ghana.
The end of colonial rule in Ghana in and the subsequent attainment of a republican status in July meant that Ghana was free to determine for herself the direction and nature of her higher education Agbodeka, ; Fynn, This enabled the University of Ghana to introduce new courses without approval from the former.
It was within this context that the Department of Psychology was established in and the Department of Psychiatry in Agbodeka, This makes clinical psychology the first postgraduate training in psychology to be offered in Ghana.
Though it is a growing science at best, psychology has gradually become established in Ghana due to the hard work of prominent scholars such as Prof. Cyril Edwin Fiscian — , Mr.
Herbert Claudius Ayikwei Bulley — , Prof. Joseph Yaw Opoku — , and Prof. Cyril Edwin Fiscian and Mr. Inusah, personal communication, November 25, This implies that the teaching of psychology as a university course was introduced by a Ghanaian, Prof.
The effort of Mr. Bulley is also commendable. This is because Mr. Bulley held the fort when most Ghanaian psychology lecturers including Prof. Fiscian, the initiator left for Nigeria in the s.
This affected the staff strength of the psychology department badly that, at the time, Mr. Bulley was forced to teach a number of undergraduate psychology courses, even courses outside his specialization as a psychometrician C.
Akotia, personal communication, November 27, ; Oppong, a. Therefore, by staying behind and holding the fort, Mr. Bulley can be said to have single-handedly kept Ghanaian psychology alive, sustaining it so that it could flourish again in the present day.
As has been indicated earlier, the academic discipline of psychology has, since its humble beginnings at the University of Ghana, been growing at least in terms of the number of psychology graduates to the present state of having eight 8 universities offering psychology as a university-level course of study.
There as several others that offer psychology as part of their business education curricula. In spite of this growth, psychology has had limited impact on national policies with a number of people not even knowing services that psychologists can offer Oppong, , a.
Perhaps other than in a few urban areas with a university or health centre nearby, most people do not know what services are offered by psychologists. It is this Eurocentric dominance over the discipline of psychology in its history, content, and practices that even necessitated the writing of this historical review.
Cyril Edwin Fiscian — and Mr. Herbert Claudius Ayikwei Bulley — ,. Mate-Kole in terms of increasing the number of PhDs trained and graduated by the Department of Psychology at UGL and his encouragement to PhD students to publish during the doctoral studies; he has also contributed towards efforts at indigenizing psychology in Ghana as well as participation in the formation and steering of PAPU.
Mate-Kole was instrumental in getting psychology to be included among the programmes covered by the scholarship scheme. Ama de-Graft Aikins on Thursday June 30, ; her inaugural lecture was on the topic: Akotia, an Associate Professor of Social Psychology at the Department of Psychology, as the dean of the School of Social Sciences; this makes her the first female psychology professor to hold that position and the second from the psychology department to hold such a position the first being Mr.
By graduating with PhD in psychology from UGL in, she also became the first person to obtain a psychology doctorate at a Ghanaian university and the first with such educational background to rise to the rank of an associate professor.
Her place is among the female pioneers of psychology in Ghana. All other doctoral-level industrial-organizational psychologists trained abroad. Have there not been debates about the validity of the Eurocentric hegemony over Psychology taught at the University of Ghana?
Not much is known or heard about any open debate. The preamble is as follow:. It is only when we start developing our own theories and epistemologies that we can really understand Africans and what makes meaning to the African people.
We believe that when this is done, not only will indigenous psychology enhance the understanding of local phenomena but will also expand our vision of what forms psychological functioning may take in diverse cultures.
What needs emphasizing is the fact that Prof. Akotia at the Department of Psychology, University of Ghana, Legon, may have been among the first known voice among Ghanaian psychologists at the University of Ghana to speak openly about the hegemony of Eurocentric psychology.
Another voice has been that of Prof. Puplampu, an industrial psychologist, who in also presented some findings on cultural variations in the meaning of work MOW using evidence from Ghana see Puplampu, Currently, the intellectual atmosphere is open and accommodative to indigenization, though there are elements of resistance.
This is to say that the momentum is great enough to launch into an era of formally indigenizing psychology in Ghana. However, doctoral level training in psychology can be obtained at the University of Ghana alone whereas doctoral level training in curriculum and teaching can be obtained at the University of Cape Coast Oppong, a.
In keeping with the call for constructing a truly international history of psychology through a polycentric history rather than local histories Brock, b ; Danziger, , a brief account is provided here about the interrelationship between Ghanaian psychology and some external centres of psychology.
Ghanaian psychology has been influenced largely by psychologies of the United Kingdom, Norway, United States and recently South Africa see Oppong, a. However, the UK and US are the principal influencers.
While the UK influence was felt through pioneers such as Fiscian, Bulley, Opoku, and Danquah as cited in Oppong, a because they each received some of their postgraduate education there, the US influence on Ghanaian psychology have been through the availability of US textbooks and curriculum comparisons.
This shift is more likely to be the outcome of the success improved quality and completion rates of the taught model that was first adopted and experimented at the West African Centre for Crops Improvement at UGL with Cornell University.
However, the PhD by publication model also exists but less used. Nevertheless, their influence on how psychology is conducted taught and practised in Ghana is minimal.
The wave of indigenization of psychology in Ghana has been driven, to a large extent, by the successful developments in the US by African American psychologists and to a lesser degree successes by psychologists in South Africa, Zambia, India, Central and Eastern Europe such as Croatia, Estonia, etc.
However, the main influencer on the indigenization has been the long-standing Ghanaian spirit to break free that dates back to the early encounters with Europe and tone of scholarly works by Ghanaian scholars in the 18th century through to the early 20th century, culminating in the regaining of independence from the British in after British imperial rule since the s.
The Gold Coast of Guinea [now Ghana] is without controversy a peculiar country, inhabited by aboriginal tribes whose manners, customs, institutions and laws dimly, but persistently, recall an advanced stage of civilization in a golden age that has long since receded into oblivion.
But the landmarks are there for all that — clear, distinct and indelible… Four centuries of contact with Europe have in no way exorcised the spirit of our ancestors, and still it defies the remotest possibility of subjugation.
It is clear from the ongoing discussions that psychology in Ghana and most part of Africa will become qualitatively different from Western psychology over next couple of years. This awareness is leading them to question the metaphysical monistic and epistemological assumptions of Western psychology.
It is hoped that such awareness would lead Ghanaian and other African psychologists to answer the metaphysical questions that confront the African psychologist in the conduct of psychological science in the African context.
This will also require African psychologist raising the appropriate metaphysical questions and attempting to answer them. Indeed, Western psychology became distinct from its origin, natural philosophy or theology, through its resolution of its metaphysical questions Hatfield, Watson, p.
In a recent analysis of the dynamics of the history of the older, more mature sciences Kuhn … holds that each of them has reached the level of guidance by a paradigm… With this agreement among its practitioners, the paradigm defines the science in which it operates.
An important observation is that Ghanaian psychology suffers from lack of intellectual continuity. However, Ghanaian psychologists over the years have failed to engage the works of these early Ghanaian scholars as to their relevance to our understanding of human nature or mind that can help them explicate behaviours of Ghanaians better.
This is particularly important given that the psychological categories developed in the West are only human kind but natural to those members of their speech community see Danziger, This is one reason it is sometimes difficult to teach certain western psychological concepts such as personality.
Some argue that the possibility of translation undermines such argument that psychological categories are relative to the linguistic or speech communities of their proponents. On that matter, Danziger, in an interview with Adrian C.
Brook, argued that:. You need a paragraph perhaps to express something that you say with one word because you have to supply some of the connotations which these words have for us para.
Therefore, language limits our reality Whorf, Thus, we can only think of ourselves better in the categories that we have created in our own speech community.
Is this possibly not one of the reasons Ghanaians or perhaps Africans do not see mental health as an emergency? This leads us to question whether or not the current application of Western psychiatric diagnostic categories is not rather the cause of the so-called emergency.
This is likely the case as mental health conditions are not natural kinds in the same way as physiological diseases. The former are only human kinds or human creations specific to the speech community of the creators see Danziger, This is to say that the psychological categories are too artificial for a non-native English speaker.
Dickson, personal communication, May 20, However, clinicians also face a practical challenge in that they do not have or know of Ghanaian labels for the pattern of behaviour and symptoms observed E.
Dickson, personal communication, June 13, This is because the client needs to know that his or her condition is not an unknown, non-describable, helpless situation as a way of inducing treatment compliance and foreclosure.
In contrast, Osafo, who is a contemporary of Dickson, is of the opinion that foreclosure is achieved in different ways and its immediacy also varies with social status J. Osafo, personal communication, June 14, The more affluent, Western-styled educated Ghanaians sometimes may have read about what they think is wrong with them before seeking the psychological assistance whereas the less affluent with less formal Western-styled education tend to have few conceptions about what could be wrong with them when seeking help.
Osafo recommends differential diagnosis as a way of ruling out rival explanations due to possible or concurrent pathological disease s through referral to a medical practitioner for medical assessment; consequently, this enables him to focus more on nonpathological explanations such as psychosocial and spiritual.
Put another way, a biopsychotheosocial model as opposed to a biopsychosocial model would have to be understood as an approach to treatment or an explanatory system which takes into account and emphasizes, where applicable, any combination of the four interacting dimensions to wellbeing or behaviour, biological, psychological, theological, and social see Osafo, for a detailed discussion on the need for collaboration between mental health professionals and religious leaders.
Studies in Race Emancipation Hayford, also provide additional indication of the persistence of religious beliefs and other customs of the Ghanaian. Other useful sources include J.
On the issue of application of diagnostic categories, Osafo suggests that therapy is possible without the use of diagnostic schemes and their associated categories if the problem is purely psychosocial as such conditions tend to be purely existential crises J.
Differences in opinion and practice can only be put down to the fact that one has medical background as a physician Erica Dickson and the other purely a psychology background Joseph Osafo.
However, they agree that some clients resist, downplay and even at times dismiss such labeling and reinterpretations E. Dickson, personal communication, June 13, ; J. Indeed, this is particularly the case for psychological disorders without biological origins such as personality disorders.
In other words, psychological disorders that can be explained only within a psychosocial model of causes suffer mostly from what Danziger is describing in relations to his description of natural kinds versus human kinds.
All said and done, it is clear that natural versus human kind distinction is quite important for successful practice in Ghana. Perhaps, disorders with possible biopsychosocial explanations such as psychoneuroimmunuological disorders are less likely to lead to such practical challenges.
According to Dickson, such disorders constitute somehow natural kinds because regardless of the label given to them, the biological basis and their physiological manifestations will occur E.
This implies that a distinction should be made between the diagnostic categories that are natural kinds such as psychoneuroimmunuological disorders and those that are human kinds such as personality disorders in practice and research.
This way it is possible to consider the indigenous interpretations of the human kind as opposed to the received interpretations contained in the current Western diagnostic schemes.
Relabeling of the natural kinds for the sake of easy identification and understanding by indigenous clients may not be a wasted effort as it can facilitate psychoeducation.
However, there is also a need to reconsider the human kinds against the indigenous worldview as to whether those categories are worth their usage and in such cases whether relabeling is worth the effort.
Probably, it is the view that therapy is not so successful in modifying personality or character. This view may be consistent with behaviourist understanding of behavioural modification.
This also implies further that involvement of family and neighbourhood where practically possible could be a resultant recommendation for potential therapy. It is because family and neighbourhood can adjust their behaviour towards the client which would create the needed environment to induce the behavioural change in the person.
Thus, it is about time Ghanaian psychologists engaged the literature created by early Ghanaian historians and philosophers to draw ideas so as to build a psychology capable of helping Ghanaians to understand themselves in their own terms.
In the light of the above, it is not far-fetched to describe psychology as a socio-natural science that seeks to understand human behaviour in a context. Again, it studies human behaviour in a context because it is near impossibility to conduct decontextualised science of psychology as the nature of human behaviour and their descriptors are also embedded in the particular context.
Psychological research in Ghana has tended to be more in the social than natural domain probably because of its academic origins, a department of sociology. Despite the initial experimental work, the psychology laboratory at the University of Ghana which was the only psychology lab in Ghana does no longer exist.
This is perhaps another indication that psychological interests tend to be predominantly focused around the social domains of psychology. Yet another important observation is that if such an intellectual history is possible to reconstruct, then psychology has been indigenized in Ghana.
Before addressing this issue, let me rather start by commenting on how indigenization can be achieved. Indigenization can be achieved by 1 theories and concept, 2 historical reconstruction, 3 topics of inquiry, 4 methodological reforms, and 5 curriculum revision.
Psychology in Ghana is indigenized as far as topics of inquiry are concerned but very little has been achieved in terms of the other approaches. In this sense, this paper is an attempt at indigenization through historical reconstruction and to a lesser extent, through theoretical, methodological and curriculum reforms.
The limited treatment of Gold Coast female scholars and Islamic scholars, no doubt, is a limitation of this historical study. It is expected that treatment of these underrepresented groups would have enriched the history told so far.
It is particularly important that future historical studies of this nature make attempts to identify key Gold Coast Muslim scholars of the s and s given that by s a university town had been created in Dagbon.
An example is al-Hajj Muhammad b. Reindorf in by years. This will also ensure that an inclusive history of psychology in Ghana is presented as most of the Gold Coast Islamic scholars are from the northern zone of the country.
Similarly, female scholars have not been featured at all in this history. However, the Achimota College was established as a coeducational institution in and as a result may have produced outstanding female graduates.
The life, career and scholarly publications of such women should be examined in relation to their implications for psychology. Medicine and law the philosophy element are important just medicine was to W.
Similarly, the role of the University of Cape Coast as possibly a catalyst for the introduction of university course in psychology at the University of Ghana needs further exploration.
As suggested by Lovett, p. Thus, such criticism is unfair and unrealistic. This historical study will also be criticized for being presentist and whiggish in the sense that it attempts to understand the past using the present as its lens presentist and seems to suggest that the present represents a progress from the past whiggish.
Adams, personal communication, July 27, However, Lovett, p. In other words, presentist histories have pedagogical function. There is yet another reason for such presentism as is apparent in this historical study.
And this is opposed to one of the principal objectives of the new history of drawing attention to contributions of underrepresented social groups to psychology see Furumoto, Thus, historicism is not unproblematic nor neutral as Western historiographers may understand it.
It inadvertently contributes to the wrong canonical belief of an Africa without a past and perpetuates epistemic injustice against Africa and its knowledge. In other words, a certain kind of presentism is needed to demonstrate the usefulness of the ideas from its past.
This is because the past only comes to live if we understand the past in terms of contemporary language. Another criticism is that presentism in the case of a non-Western historiography results in an indigenous body of knowledge being colonized by a western category G.
The work of the African historiographer is to contribute to historical scholarship through addressing the epistemic injustice and the denial of an Africa with a past.
African historiography does not only have scientific value but also social, psychological in relations to sense of self and inferiority complex, and political consequences for the continent and its people.
In this process, the African historiographer will inadvertently and unapologetically be presentist in some ways. This presentist practice reflects my idea of critical historiography. This does not deny the value of historicity or historicism in historiography.
This is because historicity in Western history of Western psychology helps African historiographers of African psychology to appreciate new paths their own profession can take and not to allow prevailing mainstream ideas to hegemonize their work as the mainstream is often a consensus or sometimes a compromise reached at particular point in time and in a specific context.
How can we think that scientific knowledge at particular point in time is not cumulative knowledge from the past yet we can accept that the science of history is becoming better? An ardent reader would notice the unexplained breaks in this intellectual historical study.
Graness, p. Rodney, p. The European slave trade was a direct block, in removing millions of youth and young adults who are the human agents from whom inventiveness springs.
Without any doubt, these conditions have not only affected the growth of philosophy in Africa with its precursor in ancient Black Egypt but all the other disciplines including psychology or its precursor in Ghana and Africa in general, if it is accepted that philosophy is the mother of all modern-day disciplines.
In this paper, I sought to trace the intellectual history of modern psychology as an academic discipline in Ghana. In the process, the history of psychology before the s was presented focusing on the University of Sankore, Timbuktu whereas the events occurring between and s focusing on the life and works of Prof.
Anton Wilhelm Amo — were reviewed. In addition, a review of the historical events taking place in the post era was also outlined paying particular attention to the contributions of Prof.
Bulley see Oppong, a. Given its humble beginning, the majority of professionals who were involved in the application of psychological knowledge were not always trained as professional psychologists per se; their training may be in such fields as education, theology, philosophy, law, medicine, and human services, to name but a few.
In this sense, a fair picture of training and practice of psychology as a scientific discipline existed in Ghana but not as an academic discipline as known today. The connections between philosophy and other subject areas such as theology and psychology speak to the issue of designing culture-rich curriculum.
Oppong a provides an extensive discussion on how to indigenize psychology in Ghana and the rest of Africa and offers a definition and scope a Pan-African psychology. This paper itself is a testament to the fact some insight into the above disciplines will facilitate the process of indigenizing psychology in Ghana.
Perhaps, it is instructive to end by drawing attention to the need for a Ghanaian psychology not to be quick to discard everything Western and not to also accept everything Western. Indeed, Ahuma, p.
This implies borrowing ideas wherever they may come from and whenever it is prudent. Additionally, based on the Sekyi Puzzle of modernity, Oppong a, p. As a matter of urgency, we should discourage wholesale rejection of all Western psychological concepts as it is inimical to cross-fertilization of ideas.
It is also premature at this stage to make strong suggestion for total rejection of all forms of Eurocentric concepts. To encourage wholesale rejection of Western psychology is to throw away the baby with the dirty water.
Indigenization should involve intelligent borrowing of ideas from other cultures as no single culture has answers to all human problems. As Lauer has already indicated there is no such thing as a distinct Western philosophy and science as there have been influences from African philosophy in ancient Black Egypt, Hindu philosophy as well as Islamic philosophy on the indigenous Western thought.
Future historical studies should address a number of the historical questions and gaps raised in this study. For instance, identification and exploration of the reflections of Gold Coast Muslim scholars and women in relations to human nature or behaviour would advance historical scholarship on psychology in Ghana and Africa.
The interactions, if any, among Amo who arrived in the Gold Coast in, Jacobus who died in, Protten who was in the Gold Coast from till his death in, Philip Kwaku who also died in and the Timbuktu scholars who were operating a university in the s also in the Gold Coast should also be investigated.
Some questions of interest would include: Further historical explorations of philosophical reflections on human soul and mind in ancient Egypt and Ethiopia as precursors of modern-day psychology in general and African psychology in particular would equally advance scholarship on internationalization of history of psychology.
Again, the psychological positions of such modern Ghanaian psychologists such as S. Busia, Gyekye and Wiredu on the other, should also be studied in order to uncover, understand and extend their treatises on psychology or nature of human mind or behaviour in Ghana.
Organisational culture, change readiness and successful change implementation in universities in Ghana Unpublished doctoral dissertation. University of Ghana, Legon, Accra, Ghana.
The theological origins of Western philosophy and science. A historical study of the impact of colonial rule on indigenous medical practices in Ashante: A focus on colonial and indigenous disease combat and prevention strategies in Kumase, — Unpublished doctoral dissertation.
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Psych Discourse, 31 10 , On the apathy of the human mind or the absence of sense and of the faculty of sensing in the human mind and the presence of these in our organic and living body Doctoral dissertation, Trans.
The need for a new intellectual path. The Journal of Pan African Studies, 5 8 , Proverbs of the Akans. Social structure of Ghana: A study in persistence and change.
The role of African traditional healers in the management of mental challenges in Africa. First great Black man of letters. Journal of Black Studies, 19 4 , Philosophy in history and history of philosophy as academic politics.
Cape Town, South Africa: Problems in studying the role of Blacks in Europe. The Newsmagazine of the American Historical Association. History and systems of psychology 5th ed. Psychology in the modern sense.
What is a polycentric history of psychology? An interview with Kurt Danziger. Stages of colonialism in Africa: From occupation of land to occupation of being. Journal of Social and Political Psychology, 3 1 , The position of the chief in the modern political system of Ashanti: A study of the influence of contemporary social changes on Ashanti political institutions.
Nagel Institute of Calvin College. Center for African Studies. Taking Africa to the Classroom. Retrieved August 28, from www. The exclusion of the African contribution to the conceptual development of reality, appearance and knowledge in the history of philosophy Unpublished doctoral dissertation.
Lineages and higher education. The Akan doctrine of God. The positivist repudiation of Wundt. Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, 15 , Natural kinds, human kinds, and historicity.
Universalism and indigenization in the history of modern psychology. New York University Press. The growth of African civilization: A history of West Africa — A tale of two polities: Socio-political transformation on the Gold Coast in the Atlantic World.
Australasian Historical Archaeology, 27 , Islamic revivalism in contemporary Ghana. Generalising about race and intelligence is just stupid. Introduction to political thinkers 2nd ed.
Their religion, manners, customs, laws, language, etc. Childhood and society 2nd ed. Understanding psychology 3rd ed. The progress and status of psychology in Africa.
Journal of Psychology in Africa, 1 , Busia on ethnicity, religion, and nationality. Power and ethics of Knowing. The new history of psychology. Stanley Hall Lecture Series, 9 , A junior history of Ghana.
Ananse folklore and psychology. Readings from Ghana pp. An introduction to Africana philosophy. The history of education in Ghana: From the earliest times to the declaration of independence.
Questions of canon formation in philosophy: The history of philosophy in Africa. Phronimon, 16 2 , Writing the history of philosophy in Africa: Journal of African Cultural Studies, 28 2 ,
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Abstract. Psychology as taught in Ghanaian universities is largely Eurocentric and imported. Calls have been made to indigenize psychology in Ghana. The big concert is on Saturday night featuring groups like the City Boy's, Vision Band, Eddie Ntreh and Avalon Allotey. J. A. Adofo (Black Chinese) and the City Boy's Band will treat us all to highlife music right from the source.
20.03.2018 - It is also important to note that religion or theology, healing, and philosophy were and continued to be taught together. On the very idea of a Western knowledge tradition: Consequently, a slow but perceptible change in Akan marriage is evident among certain subgroups. Ccleaner free download for windows 7 home basic - ... Journal of Black Studies, 19 4 It has also been the topic of research by scholars from several disciplines in addition to food scientists and lactation management specialists. Further questions need to be adequately answered.
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05.02.2018 - This implies that theology, philosophy and science including psychology have also been related and would continue to be related even if not as directly as before. This implies that a distinction should be made between the diagnostic categories that are natural kinds such as psychoneuroimmunuological disorders and those that are human kinds such as personality disorders in practice and research. Taking Africa to the Classroom. Ccleaner for windows xp 64 bit - Version 188 downl... This awareness is leading them to question the metaphysical monistic and epistemological assumptions of Western psychology. This will also require African psychologist raising the appropriate metaphysical questions and attempting to answer them.
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18.03.2018 - In this process, the African historiographer will inadvertently and unapologetically be presentist in some ways. Brookargued that:. Ccleaner free download windows 7 bg - Person inter... It is also concerned with the identification of easy to use and adaptable research tools, which can be used to build simple micro, role models operating within cultural and social systems, using basic ethnographic methods indicating relative levels of social and material capital — available resources and relationships and which can facilitate comparative empirical field work, designed to test related hypotheses, regarding disruptions and breakdowns of parental care, and their causes and consequences, in contrasting socio-cultural and economic contexts. Watsonp.
The entrepreneurial spirit of the Kwasi Oppong’s and the quest to succeed at all, but genuine cost, led to the establishment of KWASI OPPONG COMPANY LIMITED in the year by the owners, Mr. & Mrs. Oppong. This company which was ushered in as a retail entity in the sale and distribution of Iron Rods, Cement, Wire Nails and other. Jan 11, · Accra (Greater Accra) 11 January – The Government was on Thursday officially informed of the death of Mr S. K. Oppong, the ace musician and actor. Oppong who was the leader of the Osofo Dadzie Group, which thrilled television viewers in the s with their drama series, died at the Korle-Bu.
Indeed, some of the traditional norms that ensured respect, support, reciprocity, and embeddedness may now leave many older people, especially women, isolated, weakened, and victims of illness and violence.
Social capital and systems of care: This paper further attempts a task of which the usefulness has recently been advocated by van Staveren The topic fits broadly into issues treated by social scientists of several disciplinary persuasions and in different time periods and locations; that is linkages between social relationships and affiliation on the one hand and physical and mental health and survival on the other, expressed by some as a positive relationship between social capital and health capital.
Care is clearly a critical intervening variable. It is concerned in particular with evidence of what are perceived as escalating diminutions and disruptions in parental care, - processes which have profound implications for infants, children and human development and its sustainability.
Indeed they are critical for future national development. It is also concerned with the identification of easy to use and adaptable research tools, which can be used to build simple micro, role models operating within cultural and social systems, using basic ethnographic methods indicating relative levels of social and material capital — available resources and relationships and which can facilitate comparative empirical field work, designed to test related hypotheses, regarding disruptions and breakdowns of parental care, and their causes and consequences, in contrasting socio-cultural and economic contexts.
It accordingly first briefly considers some points made in van Staveren's recent research paper on Social Capital and Care and then goes on to focus on some earlier and more recent findings from Ghana.
These include a cursory look at a now classic ethnography, Meyer Fortes the Web of Kinship, which graphically displays the characteristics under study, that is dense "social capital" and the care surrounding infants and young children, as they were observed in a rural, northern Ghanaian community of the Tallensi half a century ago Fortes It then goes on to summarize and briefly consider some recent findings and discussions of several Ghanaian essays, which focus on care disrupted and in increasing jeopardy and the implications for child survival and development.
Globalization and the Disruption of Mother Care. Research Review NS It has also been the topic of research by scholars from several disciplines in addition to food scientists and lactation management specialists.
This essay, though short and perforce.. Infants' Entitlement and Babies' Capabilities: A High Price to Pay: Seven Roles of Women: An explosion of paid work.
The numbers of women seeking paid work is rising throughout the world, and another M are expected to join the world's workforce by the year Charts the global picture of women at work, and shows how their opportunities are limited by recession, their role as mothers, education discrimination, and the competition of men.
Some Aspects of Anthropological Contributions. Jan Fertility in Developing Countries. This chapter is concerned with some of the advantages which might accrue to economic research and policy-making based upon it in the field of fertility behaviour, if more insights, both conceptual and methodological, were drawn from other disciplinary approaches.
The particular approaches used here are those of social anthropology or comparative family sociology. Economic Models and Having Children: Some Evidence from Kwahu, Ghana. Considers aspects of reproduction and fertility among the Kwahu of southern Ghana, particularly among the members of a lineage in one rural town characterised by profound socioeconomic change and differentiation.
The main features of economic models of rational decision-making with respect to fertility are outlined, noting the findings of several Ghanaian studies which have attempted to link changing patterns of costs and benefits involved in kin and conjugal family ties with changes in fertility and parental role expectations.
Economic models are shown to require increased sophistication: From Love To Institution: Indications of Change in Akan Marriage. Examines the incidence of love in the sense of a strong emotional and erotic attachment within marriage among the Akan matrilineal elite of Ghana, and the extent to which the social context of marriage is conducive to such love.
Research is presented to support the theory that a person is more able to enjoy love within marriage when the social system does not compel spouses to remain married e.
The traditional Akan system provided such support, but modernization social and spatial mobility is weakening it. Consequently, a slow but perceptible change in Akan marriage is evident among certain subgroups.
Dec Love and Attraction. In this paper a series of hypotheses linking urban residence and education with changes taking place in norms regarding family size are operationalized and their validity is demonstrated using data from single, male Ghanaian students.
The intervening variables which are conceptualized and measured in terms of ordinal scales are: The dependent variable is attitude toward family size.
No direct correlation is observed between the independent and dependent variables. The types of attitudes toward conjugal family closure and jointness of the marital relationship are seen to be crucial intervening variables - the links in a chain of domestic change already observed but, as of yet, inadequately explained and documented in the elite Ghanaian setting.
Family type and size: Several studies have recently been carried out to relate different types of conjugal and family ties to differential fertility and fertility-related behaviour.
Data collected include attitudes to ideal family size, contraceptive practice and actual numbers of children born. The crumbling of high fertility supports: Female teachers in Ghana are a socially and spatially mobile segment of a society in rapid transition.
But the fact that high fertility is expected of them while they themselves cling to traditional ideals creates stress in changing socio-economic context. Retrograde Steps in Ghana.
A Study of Norms among Ghanaian Students. In this paper data from a sample of Ghanaian University students is used to test the cross-cultural validity of the hypothesis that jointness of the conjugal role relationship is associated with small family size norms and segregation with large family size norms Hawthorn, Approval of jointness and segregation is measured by means of an ordinal scale based upon responses to eight different statements about the division of labour, decision-making and finances.
The data support the hypothesis as there is a significant correlation between attitudes to family size and jointness of the conjugal relationship. Attitudes toward family type and family size in West Africa: Recently a number of attempts have been made to stimulate more anthropologists to apply the perspectives and concepts of their discipline to population studies.
Pleas have also been made for further understanding of the social determinants of fertility, in particular through the exploration of processes occurring in the reproductive unit. This paper, using an anthropological approach, tests a widely held but sparsely substantiated hypothesis regarding family type and family size: Since the statement and testing of such an hypothesis has hitherto been considerably hampered by the lack of precise operational definitions of family type, an important focus of this paper is the utilization of an adequate conceptual framework within which to spell out and test a specific hypothesis.
The data used in formulating and testing this proposition are taken from a survey of Ghanaian university students' prescribed norms for conjugal and kinship behavior. An ordinal scale has been used to assess degrees of approval of openness or closure of the conjugal family, that is, extended or nuclear family norms.
However, others trace it to the 12th century Christian tradition of the clergy wearing religious regalia and that the mortarboard cap is considered a direct descendent of the biretta which was won by Catholic priests Padden, Regardless of the controversy, it can be said that academic regalia has a religious root.
It is important to note that psychology in its modern form was not taught at the University of Sankore. However, philosophy and medicine were taught. It needs to be emphasized here that scientific psychology as taught and practiced today may not have been studied.
However, the consensus is that modern Psychology has evolved over time from the ancient through the medieval to the modern period Brock, a ; Vidal, This is to say that there were intellectual developments that can logically be placed within the historical evolution of psychology in Africa as was the case in Europe.
The connection between philosophy and psychology and the teaching of these subjects is a complex one. In the late s, Hall decried that the teaching of psychology had been eliminated from the study of philosophy in the US.
He argued that while the method of philosophical indoctrination was predominant, the open questions of psychology and metaphysics were de-emphasized. Hall also bemoaned the prestige attached to philosophy without science as opposed to philosophy that encourages experimentation including psychology.
This implies that the early psychologists including Hall may have considered their science just another approach to doing philosophy rather than a separate science. This also shows that psychology was only considered as one of the approaches to the study of philosophy.
Hatfield makes this point more clearly. In the literature of the history of psychology there has been considerable examination of the situation in German universities during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, where the philosophers and psychologists were battling over the appointment of experimental psychologists to chairs in philosophy.
Perhaps, it is also important to draw the attention of contemporary psychologists to the forgotten, unknown or unrecognized role of philosophers themselves in driving psychology out of the philosophy departments.
Kusch, , acknowledges that the prevailing anti-psychologistic arguments in the s as represented by the ideas of Gottlob Frege and Edmund Husserl played a major role in displacing psychology out of philosophy in Germany.
Kusch summarizes the psychologistic arguments as the position that logic is part of and must be based on psychological science. This gave the psychologists the right to be in the philosophy departments to teach logic.
Kusch argues that the anti-psychologistic arguments of Frege and Husserl were targeted at psychologistic philosophers including Wilhelm Wundt at the time.
In the case of Australia as well, Hills, para. Prior to Australian psychologists wishing to affiliate with a professional body belonged to the Australian Association of Psychology and Philosophy.
Thus, in the case of Australian psychologists, the philosophers also played an active role of the moving out of psychology of the society. This suggests that it cannot simply be true that psychologists by themselves fought for their separation from philosophy; in fact, psychologists were considered nuisance in the philosophy departments.
It is quite possible that psychology would have remained part of philosophy for a long time, if there was an accommodating home at the philosophy departments. This is the untold or unknown story.
Titchener in another camp, inspired by the new philosophy of positivism associated with Ernst Mach and Avenarius as cited in Danziger, However, current developments in psychology today show that Wundtian argument eventually won.
What was the relationship among philosophy, theology, and psychology? Hall suggested that philosophy and theology are related and united through the philosophers studied and the teachers of philosophy in the s.
Specifically, he intimated that the study of theology involved the study of philosophy, as many of the philosophers the students of his era studied had philosophical positions on theology.
This suggests that theology is also the study of philosophy with a different philosophical question or focus, faith and God. On the matter of the relationship among psychology, philosophy and theology, Hatfield, p.
By contrast, both philosophy and psychology were typically taught by a man with religious credentials often a reverend, who served as Provost or Vice Provost of the college or university. That psychology is one of the approaches to the study of philosophy can also be deduced from the fact that there is an overlap between the scope of psychology and philosophy.
Pence, p. The similarities between philosophy and psychology are summarized in Table 3. Thus, the study of philosophy is necessarily psychology by other means. This also shows that scholars at the University of Sankore studying theology, mathematics, and philosophy also studied psychology by other means.
By other means, I refer to the use of arguments rather than experiments to resolve philosophical questions about human nature. For instance, Yang distinguishes among folk, philosophical, and scientific psychologies.
According to Yang, p. This means that both folk and philosophical psychologies were taught and practised at the University of Sankore. Leahey makes an important argument that also shows that psychology has always existed in all societies except that it scientific psychology has not always been universal.
Leahey added that scientific psychology encounters rivals such as dualism and folk psychology in its attempts to achieve its goals. In particular, dualist orientation is that there are immaterial beings such as God, gods, angels, and demons which control our behaviour whereas the scientific psychology based on naturalism holds that all human behaviours have natural causes.
Leahey, p. Perhaps, theology is the study of psychology without science as well. Indeed, Murphy and Kovach, p. Recently, a Vienna-based philosopher, Graness has suggested that western or Greek philosophy has its antiquity in ancient Egypt in Africa as it was the source of Greek philosophy which later became Western philosophy.
It is important to note that the ancient Greeks referred to black people as Aethiopia or Ethiopia Snowden, There is good reason, therefore, for one to begin a discussion of history of psychology from ancient Black Egypt philosophy in Africa rather than from ancient Greek philosophy.
Philosophy and psychology were not limited to academic exploration. Indeed, the higher level of academic exploration is really an expansion of a more fundamental philosophy and psychology.
Evidence of this fundamental philosophical and psychological thought is evident from examination of African proverbs. For instance, Appiah, Appiah, and Agyeman-Duah have compiled about 7, of such proverbs of the Akan people of Ghana which address every aspect of life of the Akan person.
These proverbs are as indeed as old as the Akan people. According to Wingo, para. Like other long-established cultures the world over, the Akan have developed a rich conceptual system complete with metaphysical, moral, and epistemological aspects.
Of particular interest is the Akan conception of persons, a conception that informs a variety of social institutions, practices, and judgments about personal identity, moral responsibility, and the proper relationship both among individuals and between individuals and community.
This is an indication that philosophy and by extension psychology has also been part of African culture. This also shows that it is scientific psychology which may be considered an imported entity into Africa.
Thus, what scientific psychology has done in Africa is to provide systematic methods that African psychologists can employ to resolve their philosophical questions on the nature of human mind and behaviour without resorting to logical arguments.
Indeed, this also implies that the study of psychology is the study of philosophy by other means. The transition from the University of Sankore to the s is also unclear due to incomplete records.
Missionary work and trade with the indigenes followed suit until the Bond of was signed on March 6, between the coastal states and the Asante kingdom with Commander Hill of the British Empire facilitating it Fynn, Indeed, that marked the beginning of British imperial interest in the Gold Coast but it was in that the Gold Coast effectively became a British colony amid resistance Fynn, Until, the British were merely traders fighting other Europeans for monopoly over trade and trying to impose their rule on the unwilling people of the Gold Coast.
From to when the Gold Coast Education Ordinance was enacted, formal education in the Gold Coast largely involved missionaries and evangelical work Fynn, It is also important to note that religion or theology, healing, and philosophy were and continued to be taught together.
This happened at the University of Sankore. To this extent, it is possible to suggest that African scholars and students at the university studied psychology in terms of its subject matter, nature of human mind and behaviour.
In a study on the contributions of early Muslim scholars and challenges to contemporary Muslim psychologists, Haque, p. Hall argued that those who taught philosophy in the US in most part of s were individuals who originally received training in theology.
Similarly, Summa Theologica written by St. In a similar vein, St. C The City of God has been considered an important introduction to political philosophy Ebenstein, This implies theological or religious studies also involved philosophical studies.
Indeed, the interaction between philosophy and theology gave birth to scholasticism Brennan, , a philosophical exercise in which human reason coexists with faith in the search for truth.
Acquinas and Augustine are two examples of such scholastic philosophers see Leahey, If philosophy is the study of psychology by other means and theology is the study of philosophy by other means, then philosophy and theology or religious studies both involve the study of psychology by other means.
Gyekye, p. The two enterprises — religion and science — are related in that they both have perspectives on reality, even though their interpretations of reality differ in several ways…. Ackah has also demonstrated that the philosophical and scientific works of the pre-Socratics had theological origins.
In particular, he showed that rational or natural theology — the arguments about the nature of God and the supernatural derived from the premises of the observed or observable natural phenomena or processes — served as the basis for both Western philosophy and science during the pre-Socratic era.
As Lauer has also argued, it is entirely a fruitless exercise to demarcate any knowledge tradition by timescale. For instance, the pre-Socratic philosophy is known to have influenced the subsequent post-Socratic era Lauer, This implies that theology, philosophy and science including psychology have also been related and would continue to be related even if not as directly as before.
Again, James argued that the origin of Greek philosophy, ancient Egypt philosophy, has its origin in ancient Egypt religious practices as the priest of the Secret Order were the teachers of philosophy.
Existence of ancient Egypt philosophy has been supported through analysis of ancient Egypt manuscripts by Graness, an Austrian philosopher based at the University of Vienna.
He has also alluded indirectly to influence of such philosophy on Greek philosophy. What deductions can we make in relation to the training of traditional healers in Ghana? Lilford, p.
Similarly, Adu-Gyamfi has suggested that the training of traditional healers involved studies in herbal knowledge and theology or religious studies studies of the levels and forms of beliefs and practices in African traditional religion as well as ethics.
That theology also involved philosophical studies means that the training received by traditional healers also involved the study of the philosophy of their people. Given that philosophy is the study of psychology by other means, it can be concluded that traditional healers were also exposed to psychology of the people, at least in terms of the subject matter of human soul or human nature.
This, in itself, suggests that Ghanaians taught philosophy as it related to religion and healing practices. Indeed, this was a similar occurrence in the training of priests in ancient Black Egypt James, Regardless of the label used, philosophy and psychology have always been part of the knowledge systems of Africans in general and Ghanaians in particular even before Western style education arrived in Africa.
So what is the connection of University of Sankore to modern-day Ghana? Historical sources indicate that the predecessors or ancestors of majority of modern-day Ghanaians migrated southwards to their current settlements from the ancient empires in Western Africa.
Again, Mali Empire within which the University of Sankore flourished also only came into being after the fall of the Ghana Empire Windsor, It is important to note that Akans constitute almost half of the population of modern-day Ghana Central Intelligence Agency, It is, therefore, likely that the Akan people and other ethnic groups of modern Ghana had had encounters with the scholars from the University of Sankore or some of them may have even studied at the university.
The Akans or other ethnic groups who travelled to Sankore may have, formally or informally, brought the teachings back to their homeland or because the Malian empire was so influential that its philosophy influenced all of the peoples around it.
Regardless of the nature of encounter, the knowledge produced at the University of Sankore might have influenced the life of the people of Walata and therefore the Akans or the other ethnic groups of modern Ghana.
Another explanation is that of a direct interaction between Timbuktu scholars and the people of Gold Coast or Ghana through trade. Historical records suggest that Mande traders in gold and kola nuts and later slaves associated with the Mali Empire settled in the Akan forest of Begho, near Wenchi in the Gold Coast in the early 15th century Hiskett, The Mande scholarly community in Timbuktu is reported to have arrived in Dagbon in northern Ghana around C.
There also emerged another notable trading centre called the Salaga Market in the Gonjaland in northern Ghana through the trading activities of the Hausa Muslims in Dumbe, It became the largest trading centre in West Africa and attracted trades from Timbuktu, Borno and Hausaland.
Besides, some of the scholars among the Muslim traders ended up as administrative bureaucrats scribes, medical staff, advisors, and ambassadors in the royal courts of many of the northern kingdoms especially the Dagbon and Gonja and forest kingdoms especially Asante of the Gold Coast.
This practice, indeed, was similar to the Islamic influence in the ancient kingdoms of Ghana and Songhay. For instance, Dumbe, p. A madrasa school is reported to have already been established in the early s at Buna, west of the Black Volta in the Gold Coast to train Ashanti civil servants under the stewardship of Abd Allah b.
There are still Koranic schools in the present-day Ghana which continue to be influenced by the knowledge practices brought from the University of Sankore. This implies that African philosophy as spearheaded by Kwesi Wiredu and other Ghanaian philosophers could be said to be influenced by Islamic philosophy, science and theology.
This is because Akan philosophy which has served as a key source and starting base of African philosophy has been influenced by and also influenced the Islamic philosophy brought from the University of Sankore.
Thus, Ghanaian philosophy and folk psychology have been influenced by three forces, namely: In essence, knowledge produced at the University of Sankore arrived in the Gold Coast in the s Hiskett, before the first European school was set up in by the Portuguese and before Anton Wilhelm Amo, the 18th century Ghanaian philosopher-psychologist, was even born.
What will be interesting to know is the kind of scholarly interactions direct or indirect that may have existed between the returnee scholar Amo in and the travelling Mande Muslim Scholars who, in the s, had created a university town in Dagbon in the northern territories of the Gold Coast.
The nature of the knowledge produced at the University of Sankore can be said to have made both pre-modern and modern contributions to psychology. Brock a, p. It is important to also note that the pre-Socratics such as Aristotle studied in Africa Ahuma, ; James, ; Lauer, ; for instance, pre-Socratic Greek philosophers such as Plato, Eudoxus, Aristotle, Archimedes, Euclid, Pythagoras, Proclus, and Herodotus are all known to have studied in Egypt and have made references in their works to their teachers in Africa Ahuma, ; James, ; Lauer, West African Muslim Scholars participated in the translation of some of the Arabic manuscripts into English in the s.
Indeed, scientific knowledge at any given point in time is cumulative Lovett, Given that the University of Sankore attracted scholars from far and near including the Middle East and Egypt, it is not out of place to think that the psychological knowledge as it relates to the subject matter of human soul or human nature in the Middle East was also studied at the university and has contributed to psychology as we know it today.
It also shows that psychological knowledge as it relates to human nature was also produced and transmitted by the Timbuktu and Hausa Muslim scholars from the s in the Gold Coast as it was an integral part of the curriculum at the University of Sankore see Table 1.
He was taken to Germany as a child, studied at the Universities of Halle — and Wittenberg — in Germany and later taught at Universities of Wittenberg — , Halle — , and Jena — in Germany Ahuma, ; Bess, Emma-Adamah reported that on the 29th of May, Amo presided over a disputation he wrote and delivered by one of his students, Johannes Theodosius Meiner.
Indeed, Tyson, Jones, and Elcock have suggested that psychology is not an objective, value-free science but rather a reflexive science in which there is always an ongoing interaction between discipline of psychology and its social context.
We can, therefore, argue that everyday psychology is deeply embedded in the indigenous knowledge, experiential knowledge and expert knowledge. Who is the father of Psychology in Ghana then? Historical records indicate that on October 10, Amo obtained a magister in philosophy and went on to study, among others disciplines, pneumatology the study of spiritual beings and soul and which is considered the mother of modern psychology at the University of Wittenberg, receiving a degree in medicine and science in Bemile, ; Bewaji, According to Haque, p.
Earlier, in the 14th century, psychologia referred to a branch of pneumatology, the study of spiritual beings and substances and in the 16th century, the term anthropologia was coined that branched off into psychologia, the study of human mind and somatologia, the study of human body.
In the 18th century, the influence of empiricism and rationalism paved the way for scientific psychology. According to Bemile, Amo drew evidence from the fields of philosophy and medicine in preparing his thesis, the two fields which are considered the roots of modern psychology.
Though Amo accepts that there is something we might call a mind, he maintained the argument that it is the body that perceives and feels as opposed to the mind; this is a philosophical view espoused by another Ghanaian philosopher, Kwasi Wiredu, years later.
His was a treatise that would naturally fall within philosophy of mind today but is also capable of being meaningfully studied in psychology or even a variety of physiology and anatomy p.
For instance, Hatfield, p. For reasons that have not been fully explored, calls for a more empirical, physics-emulating psychology came thick and fast around The Swiss naturalist Charles Bonnet published his Essai de psychologie in Each of them called for application of the empirical attitudes found in other branches of science, whether physiology, botany, entomology, or Newtonian science, to the domain of the mental.
Luccio reports the term psychologia was coined around by Marcus Marulus — and later in, in a publication by Johan Thomas Freig, psychologia was presented as one of the 6 subdivisions of Physics.
Again, Brock a has also suggested that marked the beginning of modern history and as a result, any psychology that came into being after this date can rightly be recognized as modern. This also means that the contributions by Amo were, indeed, contributions to modern psychology in its early beginnings.
Perhaps, it is time Amo is included in undergraduate psychology textbooks. Wiredu, therefore, argues that the seat of thought is the brain and that thinking cannot go on in a human being without the brain.
So how has Amo influenced psychology in Ghana? Much of his life history is unknown, particularly after he returned home. Danquah as cited in Twumasi, , W. Abraham, Kwesi Wiredu and Kwame Gyekye. To this extent, Amo has influenced and will continue to influence Ghanaian psychology and psychologists.
Further questions need to be adequately answered. Were there any scholarly interactions among these scholars in the Gold Coast? What was the content of the interactions? What are the implications of their interactions for understanding human soul or mind?
Indeed, there is more that can be derived from this rich intellectual tradition in Ghana by Ghanaian psychologists. It is worth noting that there were other learned Ghanaians of the 18th and 19th centuries who received Christian-patterned education see Table 4.
This can be even extended to those who studied law as law involved the study of philosophers and their philosophical positions on law. However, such studies should not be an uncritical, celebratory account of their work.
Adapted from Asante, Assimeng, p. This list is, by no means, exhaustive as it focuses more on those who had some form of Christian education. It is important to note that there were Islamic schools in the Gold Coast in the s Hiskett, That Gold Coast Muslim scholars were not listed in the table does not imply that there were no such scholars but that further research is needed to prove otherwise.
Also note that among those who studied abroad, only Amo, Capitein, and Protten had all their education in Europe as the rest had their foundational education sometimes at the college level in the Gold Coast before obtaining their advanced education elsewhere.
Note the first European-styled school was established in though it became inactive by until it was reactivated by Capitein in and saw steady growth into early s.
Another important fact is that Mensah Sarbah and colleagues established Fanti Public Schools Limited in which gave birth to the Mfantsipim School in However, it is important to also note that the first school established by a Gold Coaster Ghanaian was the one set up by Rev.
It is important for Ghanaian psychologists to identify and study works of some of these 18th and 19th century Ghanaian scholars. Nwoye, p. African Psychology is… concerned with the study and understanding of the psychological significance of the oral traditions and metaphors of the great peoples of Africa…African Psychology is also the psychology of the human significance or the psychological capital of African written literature in which are embedded a variety of mind-shaping categories and from which can be sourced the truths of human and social behaviour that nurture individual and communal attitudes and values in Africa.
Two illustrations will suffice. In this page Ph. Twumasi, p. The psychological foundations of personality, Danquah wrote, are to be found in three elements—always in the process of growth—that constitute the human mind.
These are cognition, the mental element by which we know and apprehend; conation, normally the physical condition antecedent to a bodily movement, the lowest form of which is the uneasiness one feels in the presence of an object of apprehension, and its function is the desire to effect a change in the external world.
Affection or feeling is the element of pleasure or displeasure that accompanies action or desire, following closely on the occurrence of thought or cognition and conation… Development by feeling, though conscious, does not amount to consciousness of an end or purpose since impulsive activity lacks foresight.
An individual always moves towards an end, and best realizes himself by achieving the ideal end; and the significance of a self-conscious agent's activity is to be found in its ethical import… The development of personality, however, does not proceed independently of the rational element, even if formal reason by itself cannot be accepted as fully expressive of the manning of good in explaining moral responsibility.
An individual person is a moral personality which is neither feeling nor reason merely, but a self-conscious, self-objectifying agent whose conscious activity has reference to an organic system of values conceived as his ideal end and for him absolutely.
Okra soul, Sunsum spirit, and Honam body. He further argued that both Okra and Sunsum are immaterial whereas Honam is material. More importantly, Gyekye cites J. Indeed, a careful reading of ideas of Kwame Gyekye philosopher, J.
Danquah, the lawyer, philosopher, and sociologist as cited in Twumasi, , K. This is to say that an individual is expected to evolve towards an ideal of a responsible, independent person full of wisdom and knowledge about existential challenges of living as well as of reasonable material wealth.
This may be summarized in Table 5. This bio-cultural theory of personality development provides a more useful framework for counselling, psychotherapy on existential problems, personality assessment, curriculum development, and assessment of successful outcomes of living than most of the Western theories of personality development.
It is worth then saying that so much philosophical psychology is contained in the philosophical and sociological works done by many early Gold Coast Ghanaian scholars which deserve qualitative research attention.
However, such a theory will have cross-cultural applications once psychologists elsewhere replace the developmental tasks with those salient in their cultural settings. Thus, this enterprise itself shows that indigenous psychology can have universal applications.
Modern-day psychology as an academic discipline taught at the University is traceable to the early schools established in the s. Nonetheless, the transition from the s and s to the s is equally unclear due to the same charge of incomplete records.
What is outstanding is the work by Jacobus Eliza Johannes Capitein — It needs emphasizing that Islamic schools were established in Begho near Wenchi in the Gold Coast in the s before the Portuguese school as well as an Islamic University in Dagbon in the northern territories of the Gold Coast in the s Hiskett, Again, a civil servant training school is reported to have already been established in the early s at Buna, west of the Black Volta in the Gold Coast to train Ashanti civil servants as well Hiskett, This further implies that the earliest form of non-indigenous education in the Gold Coast was also introduced by black Africans not Europeans.
However, there is nothing so unreal than to think of a distinct Christian or Islamic education because of the several centuries of interactions between the knowledge systems Brennan, ; Lauer, Another historical source suggests that in October, Rev.
Wildman of the Basel Mission began a school for the native Ghanaian children at Akropong whiles the first trained African Ghanaian teacher, David Asante — , was produced in in the Gold Coast Assimeng, ; Ofosu-Appiah, Other historical records indicate that the training of teacher-missionaries in Ghana began with the establishment of the Basel Seminary now Presbyterian College of Education in and the Accra Teacher Training College now Accra College of Education in by the Basel Mission and the government of the Gold Coast respectively Graham, So, there appear to be several possible dates of origin for the teaching and practice of psychology in Ghana.
Irrespective of whichever year one selects, the application of psychological knowledge particularly in formal education in Ghana is well over a century. However, given that applications of philosophical psychology preceded any of the above-mentioned dates, it is plausible to conclude that the application of psychology is as old as the people.
It is impossible to have a discussion of modern psychology education in Ghana without reference to the colonial rule and its demise. This is because colonial rule led to the establishment of modern universities in the various West Africa colonies.
And with the establishment of these universities, the teaching and practice of psychology could move forward more rapidly. This is to say that in the absence of a university in Ghana, it is highly improbable for modern psychology to have been introduced or perhaps it would have taken longer than it did.
It is possible to even suggest that because Achimota College gave way to the establishment of the University of the Gold Coast, perhaps university education began in Ghana in rather than in where the latter was officially opened.
Perhaps, it is interesting to note that some Ghanaian scholars knew about psychology before the University of Ghana was established. Essuman-Gwira Sekyi — is reported to have said that Africa could not expect to have continuous development if it followed an educational system based on the borrowing of alien sociology, psychology and physiology in March Asante, ; Oppong, a.
That Sekyi referred to psychology in meant that early Ghanaian scholars had learnt about psychology even before it became a university level course as cited in Asante, and so did J. Danquah in his doctoral dissertation in as cited in Twumasi, Among the courses of study offered when the University of the Gold Coast began in October was Classics which involved some study of philosophy Agbodeka, Currently, the Departments of Classics and Philosophy have been merged into a single department at the University of Ghana.
Later, the Department of Sociology was established in from the then defunct School of African Studies established in and in, the Institute of Adult Education was also established Agbodeka, It is worth stressing here that the School of African Studies is not the same as the Institute of African Studies which was established later in The mention of sociology is important here because it was in the Department of Sociology that psychology was first taught as a university course in It can be deduced from this that philosophy was taught in Ghana in the late s as a university course and that by some form of educational psychology was also taught in Ghana as a university course.
It is, perhaps, important to also note that the University College of Cape Coast now University of Cape Coast was established in and affiliated to the University of Ghana to train teachers for the educational institutions Agbodeka, The possible role of the University of Cape Coast as a catalyst for the introduction of the university course in psychology at the University of Ghana has not received any serious attention.
The circumstances which led to the mounting of the psychology course at the Department of Sociology at the University of Ghana have also not been fully explored. In sum, it can be said that all of these developments prepared the grounds for the establishment of a department of psychology at the University of Ghana.
The end of colonial rule in Ghana in and the subsequent attainment of a republican status in July meant that Ghana was free to determine for herself the direction and nature of her higher education Agbodeka, ; Fynn, This enabled the University of Ghana to introduce new courses without approval from the former.
It was within this context that the Department of Psychology was established in and the Department of Psychiatry in Agbodeka, This makes clinical psychology the first postgraduate training in psychology to be offered in Ghana.
Though it is a growing science at best, psychology has gradually become established in Ghana due to the hard work of prominent scholars such as Prof. Cyril Edwin Fiscian — , Mr.
Herbert Claudius Ayikwei Bulley — , Prof. Joseph Yaw Opoku — , and Prof. Cyril Edwin Fiscian and Mr. Inusah, personal communication, November 25, This implies that the teaching of psychology as a university course was introduced by a Ghanaian, Prof.
The effort of Mr. Bulley is also commendable. This is because Mr. Bulley held the fort when most Ghanaian psychology lecturers including Prof. Fiscian, the initiator left for Nigeria in the s.
This affected the staff strength of the psychology department badly that, at the time, Mr. Bulley was forced to teach a number of undergraduate psychology courses, even courses outside his specialization as a psychometrician C.
Akotia, personal communication, November 27, ; Oppong, a. Therefore, by staying behind and holding the fort, Mr. Bulley can be said to have single-handedly kept Ghanaian psychology alive, sustaining it so that it could flourish again in the present day.
As has been indicated earlier, the academic discipline of psychology has, since its humble beginnings at the University of Ghana, been growing at least in terms of the number of psychology graduates to the present state of having eight 8 universities offering psychology as a university-level course of study.
There as several others that offer psychology as part of their business education curricula. In spite of this growth, psychology has had limited impact on national policies with a number of people not even knowing services that psychologists can offer Oppong, , a.
Perhaps other than in a few urban areas with a university or health centre nearby, most people do not know what services are offered by psychologists. It is this Eurocentric dominance over the discipline of psychology in its history, content, and practices that even necessitated the writing of this historical review.
Cyril Edwin Fiscian — and Mr. Herbert Claudius Ayikwei Bulley — ,. Mate-Kole in terms of increasing the number of PhDs trained and graduated by the Department of Psychology at UGL and his encouragement to PhD students to publish during the doctoral studies; he has also contributed towards efforts at indigenizing psychology in Ghana as well as participation in the formation and steering of PAPU.
Mate-Kole was instrumental in getting psychology to be included among the programmes covered by the scholarship scheme. Ama de-Graft Aikins on Thursday June 30, ; her inaugural lecture was on the topic: Akotia, an Associate Professor of Social Psychology at the Department of Psychology, as the dean of the School of Social Sciences; this makes her the first female psychology professor to hold that position and the second from the psychology department to hold such a position the first being Mr.
By graduating with PhD in psychology from UGL in, she also became the first person to obtain a psychology doctorate at a Ghanaian university and the first with such educational background to rise to the rank of an associate professor.
Her place is among the female pioneers of psychology in Ghana. All other doctoral-level industrial-organizational psychologists trained abroad. Have there not been debates about the validity of the Eurocentric hegemony over Psychology taught at the University of Ghana?
Not much is known or heard about any open debate. The preamble is as follow:. It is only when we start developing our own theories and epistemologies that we can really understand Africans and what makes meaning to the African people.
We believe that when this is done, not only will indigenous psychology enhance the understanding of local phenomena but will also expand our vision of what forms psychological functioning may take in diverse cultures.
What needs emphasizing is the fact that Prof. Akotia at the Department of Psychology, University of Ghana, Legon, may have been among the first known voice among Ghanaian psychologists at the University of Ghana to speak openly about the hegemony of Eurocentric psychology.
Another voice has been that of Prof. Puplampu, an industrial psychologist, who in also presented some findings on cultural variations in the meaning of work MOW using evidence from Ghana see Puplampu, Currently, the intellectual atmosphere is open and accommodative to indigenization, though there are elements of resistance.
This is to say that the momentum is great enough to launch into an era of formally indigenizing psychology in Ghana. However, doctoral level training in psychology can be obtained at the University of Ghana alone whereas doctoral level training in curriculum and teaching can be obtained at the University of Cape Coast Oppong, a.
In keeping with the call for constructing a truly international history of psychology through a polycentric history rather than local histories Brock, b ; Danziger, , a brief account is provided here about the interrelationship between Ghanaian psychology and some external centres of psychology.
Ghanaian psychology has been influenced largely by psychologies of the United Kingdom, Norway, United States and recently South Africa see Oppong, a. However, the UK and US are the principal influencers.
While the UK influence was felt through pioneers such as Fiscian, Bulley, Opoku, and Danquah as cited in Oppong, a because they each received some of their postgraduate education there, the US influence on Ghanaian psychology have been through the availability of US textbooks and curriculum comparisons.
This shift is more likely to be the outcome of the success improved quality and completion rates of the taught model that was first adopted and experimented at the West African Centre for Crops Improvement at UGL with Cornell University.
However, the PhD by publication model also exists but less used. Nevertheless, their influence on how psychology is conducted taught and practised in Ghana is minimal.
The wave of indigenization of psychology in Ghana has been driven, to a large extent, by the successful developments in the US by African American psychologists and to a lesser degree successes by psychologists in South Africa, Zambia, India, Central and Eastern Europe such as Croatia, Estonia, etc.
However, the main influencer on the indigenization has been the long-standing Ghanaian spirit to break free that dates back to the early encounters with Europe and tone of scholarly works by Ghanaian scholars in the 18th century through to the early 20th century, culminating in the regaining of independence from the British in after British imperial rule since the s.
The Gold Coast of Guinea [now Ghana] is without controversy a peculiar country, inhabited by aboriginal tribes whose manners, customs, institutions and laws dimly, but persistently, recall an advanced stage of civilization in a golden age that has long since receded into oblivion.
But the landmarks are there for all that — clear, distinct and indelible… Four centuries of contact with Europe have in no way exorcised the spirit of our ancestors, and still it defies the remotest possibility of subjugation.
It is clear from the ongoing discussions that psychology in Ghana and most part of Africa will become qualitatively different from Western psychology over next couple of years. This awareness is leading them to question the metaphysical monistic and epistemological assumptions of Western psychology.
It is hoped that such awareness would lead Ghanaian and other African psychologists to answer the metaphysical questions that confront the African psychologist in the conduct of psychological science in the African context.
This will also require African psychologist raising the appropriate metaphysical questions and attempting to answer them. Indeed, Western psychology became distinct from its origin, natural philosophy or theology, through its resolution of its metaphysical questions Hatfield, Watson, p.
In a recent analysis of the dynamics of the history of the older, more mature sciences Kuhn … holds that each of them has reached the level of guidance by a paradigm… With this agreement among its practitioners, the paradigm defines the science in which it operates.
An important observation is that Ghanaian psychology suffers from lack of intellectual continuity. However, Ghanaian psychologists over the years have failed to engage the works of these early Ghanaian scholars as to their relevance to our understanding of human nature or mind that can help them explicate behaviours of Ghanaians better.
This is particularly important given that the psychological categories developed in the West are only human kind but natural to those members of their speech community see Danziger, This is one reason it is sometimes difficult to teach certain western psychological concepts such as personality.
Some argue that the possibility of translation undermines such argument that psychological categories are relative to the linguistic or speech communities of their proponents.
On that matter, Danziger, in an interview with Adrian C. Brook, argued that:. You need a paragraph perhaps to express something that you say with one word because you have to supply some of the connotations which these words have for us para.
Therefore, language limits our reality Whorf, Thus, we can only think of ourselves better in the categories that we have created in our own speech community. Is this possibly not one of the reasons Ghanaians or perhaps Africans do not see mental health as an emergency?
This leads us to question whether or not the current application of Western psychiatric diagnostic categories is not rather the cause of the so-called emergency. This is likely the case as mental health conditions are not natural kinds in the same way as physiological diseases.
The former are only human kinds or human creations specific to the speech community of the creators see Danziger, This is to say that the psychological categories are too artificial for a non-native English speaker.
Dickson, personal communication, May 20, However, clinicians also face a practical challenge in that they do not have or know of Ghanaian labels for the pattern of behaviour and symptoms observed E.
Dickson, personal communication, June 13, This is because the client needs to know that his or her condition is not an unknown, non-describable, helpless situation as a way of inducing treatment compliance and foreclosure.
In contrast, Osafo, who is a contemporary of Dickson, is of the opinion that foreclosure is achieved in different ways and its immediacy also varies with social status J.
Osafo, personal communication, June 14, The more affluent, Western-styled educated Ghanaians sometimes may have read about what they think is wrong with them before seeking the psychological assistance whereas the less affluent with less formal Western-styled education tend to have few conceptions about what could be wrong with them when seeking help.
Osafo recommends differential diagnosis as a way of ruling out rival explanations due to possible or concurrent pathological disease s through referral to a medical practitioner for medical assessment; consequently, this enables him to focus more on nonpathological explanations such as psychosocial and spiritual.
Put another way, a biopsychotheosocial model as opposed to a biopsychosocial model would have to be understood as an approach to treatment or an explanatory system which takes into account and emphasizes, where applicable, any combination of the four interacting dimensions to wellbeing or behaviour, biological, psychological, theological, and social see Osafo, for a detailed discussion on the need for collaboration between mental health professionals and religious leaders.
Studies in Race Emancipation Hayford, also provide additional indication of the persistence of religious beliefs and other customs of the Ghanaian. Other useful sources include J.
On the issue of application of diagnostic categories, Osafo suggests that therapy is possible without the use of diagnostic schemes and their associated categories if the problem is purely psychosocial as such conditions tend to be purely existential crises J.
Differences in opinion and practice can only be put down to the fact that one has medical background as a physician Erica Dickson and the other purely a psychology background Joseph Osafo. However, they agree that some clients resist, downplay and even at times dismiss such labeling and reinterpretations E.
Dickson, personal communication, June 13, ; J. Indeed, this is particularly the case for psychological disorders without biological origins such as personality disorders. In other words, psychological disorders that can be explained only within a psychosocial model of causes suffer mostly from what Danziger is describing in relations to his description of natural kinds versus human kinds.
All said and done, it is clear that natural versus human kind distinction is quite important for successful practice in Ghana. Perhaps, disorders with possible biopsychosocial explanations such as psychoneuroimmunuological disorders are less likely to lead to such practical challenges.
According to Dickson, such disorders constitute somehow natural kinds because regardless of the label given to them, the biological basis and their physiological manifestations will occur E.
This implies that a distinction should be made between the diagnostic categories that are natural kinds such as psychoneuroimmunuological disorders and those that are human kinds such as personality disorders in practice and research.
This way it is possible to consider the indigenous interpretations of the human kind as opposed to the received interpretations contained in the current Western diagnostic schemes.
Relabeling of the natural kinds for the sake of easy identification and understanding by indigenous clients may not be a wasted effort as it can facilitate psychoeducation.
However, there is also a need to reconsider the human kinds against the indigenous worldview as to whether those categories are worth their usage and in such cases whether relabeling is worth the effort.
Probably, it is the view that therapy is not so successful in modifying personality or character. This view may be consistent with behaviourist understanding of behavioural modification.
This also implies further that involvement of family and neighbourhood where practically possible could be a resultant recommendation for potential therapy. It is because family and neighbourhood can adjust their behaviour towards the client which would create the needed environment to induce the behavioural change in the person.
Thus, it is about time Ghanaian psychologists engaged the literature created by early Ghanaian historians and philosophers to draw ideas so as to build a psychology capable of helping Ghanaians to understand themselves in their own terms.
In the light of the above, it is not far-fetched to describe psychology as a socio-natural science that seeks to understand human behaviour in a context. Again, it studies human behaviour in a context because it is near impossibility to conduct decontextualised science of psychology as the nature of human behaviour and their descriptors are also embedded in the particular context.
Psychological research in Ghana has tended to be more in the social than natural domain probably because of its academic origins, a department of sociology. Despite the initial experimental work, the psychology laboratory at the University of Ghana which was the only psychology lab in Ghana does no longer exist.
This is perhaps another indication that psychological interests tend to be predominantly focused around the social domains of psychology. Yet another important observation is that if such an intellectual history is possible to reconstruct, then psychology has been indigenized in Ghana.
Before addressing this issue, let me rather start by commenting on how indigenization can be achieved. Indigenization can be achieved by 1 theories and concept, 2 historical reconstruction, 3 topics of inquiry, 4 methodological reforms, and 5 curriculum revision.
Psychology in Ghana is indigenized as far as topics of inquiry are concerned but very little has been achieved in terms of the other approaches. In this sense, this paper is an attempt at indigenization through historical reconstruction and to a lesser extent, through theoretical, methodological and curriculum reforms.
The limited treatment of Gold Coast female scholars and Islamic scholars, no doubt, is a limitation of this historical study.
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03.02.2018 Mazuran :
Amenfi East Youth Group Descends On Hon. Akwasi Oppong Fosu chinasmartphonesonlineshopping. blogspot. comens Legal Action Against MP & DCE. Kumah Frederick We the YOUTHS FOR PROGRESSIVE CHANGE - Amenfi East have read a news item in daily graphic news paper published on Tuesday, May 5th titled "SUPPORT GOVT'S EFFORTS TO IMPROVE LIVES"- . Mr. S K Oppong of Osofo Dadzie fame is chinasmartphonesonlineshopping. blogspot. com passed away yesterday 3rd December around chinasmartphonesonlineshopping. blogspot. com was the leader of the defunct Osofo Dadzie group, leader of S K Oppong's guitar band, and until recently the leader of the Kantata concert chinasmartphonesonlineshopping. blogspot. com guy will be remembered with his sense of humour and act of making concerts for people to. Christine Oppong of University of Ghana, Accra Legon with expertise in Qualitative Social Research, Social Theory, Medical Anthropology. Read 32 publications, and contact Christine Oppong on ResearchGate, the professional network for scientists.