MSW 517 (Module 5) NTU Psychotherapy Script

NTU Psychotherapy

NTU Psychotherapy was founded on core principles that derive from ancient African and Afrocentric concepts associated with Nguzo Saba. Known for its spiritual emphasis, NTU aims to assist people with becoming true to themselves by finding the balance of the mind, body, and spirit through a process of natural order (Phillips, 1990; West-Olatunji et al., 2014).

NTU Psychotherapy five principles (e.g., harmony, balance, interconnectedness, cultural awareness, and authenticity) into the core principles of Nguzo Saba.

Considered the foundational principle of Nguza Saba, unity was the anchor to which all of the other principles hinged.

Unity was highly valuable in the African American families to establish a moral compass, avoid conflict, and resolve conflict in situations where conflict was unavoidable. further ascertained that the unity principle was also about the practice of togetherness as an act of solidarity that could be applied to groups, organizations, classes, and people. Phillips posited harmony as the experience that exemplified closeness established through group action. Nguzo Saba suggested that techniques like rituals, self-disclosure, reframing, and genogram were helpful in obtaining harmony within oneself. Harmony was established when the fragmented parts of a person was clearly organized into a meaningful whole. Harmony Is a significant component in training social workers to work with African American families. Balance compared with Nguzo Saba’s The principle of balance mirrored the concept recognized in systems theories known as homeostasis. Phillips described balance as the concept of “I” and “we” also referred to as active togetherness reflected togetherness in the communities as African people build and maintain them. Problems within the African communities were interconnected. It was therefore the African people responsibility to own collectively their failures, victories, and activities for the families, organizations, and communities (Hatcher et al., 2017). Ujamaa “cooperative economic” reflected the principled commitment to shared wealth, self-reliance in community building, and respect for work. Nguzo Saba’s principle (creativity) emphasized the importance of leaving the community in a more beneficial manner than received, which was essential to individual, and community growth. Phillips found interconnectedness essential to the experience of self and others in the collective past, present, and future sharing of wealth and resources. Nguzo Saba suggested techniques like multi-family retreats, kinship karamu, effective communication exercises, modeling, and reframing as effective strategies in attaining balance.

In addition to the principles of harmony and balance, was the principle of interconnectedness that involved. Interconnectedness was congruent with the Nguzo Saba principle of (faith). faith focused on the belief and commitment to the Creator, belief in themselves, and faith in the human capacity to “live righteously, self-correct, support, care for and be responsible for each other and eventually create the just and good society. Nguzo Saba purported that interconnectedness could be realized through prayer, spiritual readings, unity circles, affirmation, meditation, relaxation exercises, and nature study.

Cultural awareness also referred to as affective epistemology was the fourth fundamental principle that was the belief system to which truth through feelings or emotions.

Awareness aligned with the Nguzo Saba’s principle (self-determination).

Nguzo Saba found importance of one’s awareness of culture, self-potential, self-respect, inner self-strength, and psychological barriers as aspects of self-determination.

self-determination is a way for African people “to define ourselves, we name ourselves, create for ourselves and speak for ourselves instead of being defined, named, and created for and spoken for by others “postulated that self-determination reaffirmed the rights and responsibility of African people to exist, speak their own truths, and make their own contributions with each other.

It is during this process that African Americans can access cultural awareness, belief, and truth through the feeling component of the person, and not rely on talk only. According to Nguzo Saba, exercises and activities that included Awareness, and guided imageries could be useful in one’s discovery of aspects of self.

Strong African American Families had cultural significance for African Americans because they were based on movement of culturally responsive educational, prevention, or intervention for African American youth.

Nguzo Saba’s principles (purpose), (creativity), and (self-determination)

Purpose emphasized the commitment of African people to build, develop, and defend their community, their culture, and history to regain their greatness as a people. African people consciously examined purpose through the lens of their historical and cultural identity.

Within the Afrocentric worldview, the interpersonal relationship between human beings was high in value. African Americans as with other cultures accorded importance to certain people within the family or community at large.

Authenticity influenced the direction and depth of psychological movement. It is that a person could act with a sense of spontaneity in response to and interact in a naturally and effortlessly manner. Natural healing and problem-solving thought to function appropriately through spontaneity, authenticity, and harmony.

Authentic persons and systems were considered trustworthy and reliable in regulating the harmony of the true mental, physical, and spiritual selves.

Culturally sensitive, NTU Psychotherapy prescribed to techniques adaptable to the uniqueness of a person, his family, cultural background, and therapeutic needs. Viewed as having a spiritual framework,

NTU psychotherapy valued the therapist/client relationship, a cultural aspect that resonated deeply within the Afrocentric value system.

As with all therapy approaches, the role of the therapist in NTU Psychotherapy is enormously important.

One of the primary tasks of the NTU therapist is to assist in the alignment of the client’s systems in a genuinely harmonious fashion that marshals the resources necessary to facilitate the healing process It is through the therapist rather than being caused by the therapist that healing occurred.

Recognizing the sacredness of the therapist/client relationship, the therapist communicated to the client his genuine concern. The therapist/client relationships conducted with the appreciation of the sacredness of the therapeutic relationship, there was an increase in the level of appreciation of the spiritual dimensions of the approach.

The awareness of the spiritual dimension allowed the therapist to become attuned to the client’s spiritual forces that allowed for intuition and inspiration within the client’s system to emerge. Living the same principles as the client, the therapist was able to maximize the effectiveness of the therapeutic relationship as reflective of his personal problems and problem-solving mechanisms.

NTU therapist guides the healing process through his/her skills and spirituality so that the client could view his way more clearly and acquire problem-solving skills.

The process that guided the NTU therapist progress through five phases include: Harmony: Awareness: Alignment: Actualize and Synthesize

Harmony, the first phase in the process, correlates with the development of shared consciousness and shared experiences with the client which was necessary to create mutual trust between the therapist and the client, Harmony involve the therapist’s demonstrating understanding, appreciation, and acknowledgement of the client. As asserted by the researchers, this the process continues until the therapist feels a shift in the energy indicating a readiness to proceed to the next phase.

Awareness second phase that suggested the connectedness of various components of oneself or family system. Awareness involves the clarification of the problem or issue of concern. Included as a characteristic of awareness is the “acceptance of one’s own needs, strengths, limitations, and potentials

Alignment third phase which involved assisting the client in confronting his fears in order to reach the place of reconciling his mental anxieties with his harmonious self. Alignment is in essence the achievement of internal consistency (e.g., thoughts with feelings, feelings with behavior and thoughts with behavior). Cognitive alignment is achieved when the client begins to think about issues in ways that are harmonious and complementary. Affective alignment is achieved when intense feelings are experienced as a result of knowledge gained. (accommodate new information)

Actualization fourth phases actualization involved the process of practicing and experimenting with new attitudes and behaviors in real-life situations. actualization as the empowerment phase, because it allows the client to test newly acquired skills and behaviors in a safe environment that allows familiarity and comfortability.

Synthesizing fifth phase involved the integration of the knowledge gleaned from the previous processes and used it to empower the client, synthesis occurs when the client evaluates the effectiveness of what he or she went through in the context of what he or she is and will go through.