Qualitative Research Report

Participants:

Q: Interviewer

A: Participant

(Note: Gaps in transcript due to difficult accent.)

Q: I’ve just turned the thing on, so it’s on. So yeah, mainly professionally I guess but anything that you would like to say, just a little bit about yourself, where you work, what you do, that kind of thing.

A: Okay okay. I’m completing my master’s in psychology, research based master’s. And I have an honour’s in psychology. I have a background of social work. And what else?

Q: And this is in, I should say this is in South Africa?

A: Yeah. Okay, this is in – alright I’m based in South Africa at Rhodes University and I’m currently doing my, completing my master’s. And I’m doing a research assistantship, like I’m just helping with research, with critical studies in sexualities and reproduction out of psychology department. Mostly we do research with people around the community. We write articles. But I just assist in that, in the writing of articles, on different issues concerning sexuality and reproduction, but I focus on sexualities mostly. Given the community backgrounds, sexualities in South Africa is a major issue, which is actually unfortunately receiving less attention in terms of research. So that’s my research career. And I’ve been doing that since my undergraduate program, part of my thesis was also on sexualities, looking at the issues like sexual violence, homosexuality, and how people in the community perceive and respond to that. In my honour’s I did my research based on the – I was – I did content on … reviewing how much of sexualities’ issues are being published in the journal of psychology in South Africa, just to see how much of research is being done. It’s quite-

Q: Was your undergraduate degree and your honour’s, was that just mainly mainstream psychology and you still did a thing on sexuality? Or did you actually have some less mainstream teaching in that?

A: No, my undergrad was in social work but we had psychology classes, from psychology 1 to 3. So part of social work is doing a dissertation, a mini-dissertation and I had to choose a topic and I was interested in things like the psychological and social cultural experiences of lesbians and gay people. In my – I moved to doing psychology, my honour’s, because I was really interested in the psychological issues that we were taught in my psychology classes during my undergrad, during my social work. So part of honour’s is also doing another mini dissertation. And then I continued to do my master’s after that.

Q: The reason I asked about whether you did more mainstream is because I think in a lot of the courses in Australia it would be less usual that a student would end up doing projects on sexuality, and particularly diverse sexuality. So I just wondered whether it was the case that you’re an unusual student or whether it’s the case that lots of the course in – that you studied is – has a bit more diverse teaching in it I guess that isn’t just – or mainstream’s probably not the right word, but has some teaching about diversity and things in it maybe.

A: Yeah it – yeah it was cos it had some courses teaching on diversity but I think the choice of research was really upon yourself of like as a student what you want to research. So we had to actually choose. But to my master’s I actually, I had to join a unit that specializes in that, in sexuality issues just to further my research interests.

Q: That sounds great. And so your master’s, are you training to become a practicing psychologist in South Africa or is this just interest and study and to do research?

A: I’m interested in doing a clinical psychology program but also as part of – as research as well. I’m interested in researching different issues affecting different communities. I mean in terms of psychological issues, social challenges, so forth.

Q: You mentioned that you’re interested in working in terms of working with communities. You’ve been very interested in your work in examining sexuality and diverse sexualities and genders. And is that – so do you work in communities or do you go out and meet people in those sorts of work or other work that you’ve done as well? I know you mentioned family violence as well. I guess the question was what kinds of community do you work in or work with?

A: Okay, what kinds of communities? I’d say I have a different background because I’m not originally from South Africa. I’m originally from Zimbabwe so to look at both communities, where I grew up and where I am now. Like it’s been eight years in South Africa, I see a lot of differences in terms of how people psychologically perceive sexualities issues, especially when we are talking about heteronormativity and the issues of LGBT. For example in Zimbabwe it’s something that is – they haven’t been totally accepted, like it is still a private issue. When people are talking about being a lesbian, being gay, being transgender, or being bisexual it’s something that is still done in the private space. And when we’re talking about human rights and how sexual citizenship, it’s something that is still very, very separate in – like people are not free to be who they want to be in terms of their identity. So it’s something that is still against the law actually in Zimbabwe. But when I’m looking at South African community it’s totally different. The law recognizes the LGBT community, even communities, although they still – we’re still facing some resistance in terms of homophobia. But people can openly say who they are. They can openly say, “I am lesbian. I am transgender.” And people know, the society know that there is another purpose, people are different from the normal. Since we, people normalize heterosexuality and kind of labelling the heterosexuality part of sexual orientation, but still there’s a lot of difference when you look at the two communities. Q: Would it be-

A: And even when-

Q: Sorry, go on.

A: Even when you are talking about psychology itself, apart from sexuality issues, when you’re talking about seeking psychological help in terms of counselling, therapy, it’s totally different in South Africa. Also it’s different based on different communities. When you’re looking at urban areas, when you’re looking at rural areas the level of understanding, the use of psychology or the how psychology can help people within the community is also different. For example when we are talking about mental health issues in rural areas, mostly in African – because rural areas mostly they are mostly African communities. And African communities, they believe in different things. They have different customs and beliefs. So when you’re talking about someone who’s experiencing schizophrenia or depression or delusions it is a, we find that it’s mostly likely to be linked to witchcraft, to demonic possessions, you need to be prayed for, you need to go to church to heal or you need to see a traditional healer to cast out the spell and so forth. That is in some of the – those deep, deep rural communities. But recently people, psychologists are working within those communities to educate people about seeking psychological help. But it’s getting better, it’s going somewhere because people are coming to seek different help when they are faced with mental health in the family. People are – but still there’s a lot to be done because there’s also a lot of stigmatization that goes into it when people seek psychological help, when someone is seeking therapy. Even if you don't have the major disorders, because counselling for example, it doesn’t really deal with schizophrenia, even every day living problems. So but the stigma is that the moment the person goes to see a counsellor or a psychologist there’s the stigma that this person is crazy or they are what, their uncle is crazy, those kind of words, the kind of labels that go into it. So people withdraw from seeking a better kind of help because of the stigma around the use of therapy. That is the rural communities. But when we move to the urban communities they are more acceptable, they are more educated, they are more aware of the services that psychology could benefit the community. So although some people may be reluctant individually to go, they have support systems that can say you know this is really a good way of getting help. You can go and see a therapist. They have that kind of support system that understands psychology is part and parcel of the community that – sorry, of the strategies that can be used to enhance our psychological health within the community. This is like the South African communities I’m talking about but when we move to the Zimbabwean communities, actually it becomes worse. Like the division is so broad in terms of the poor and the rich. So when we look at the very, very big white communities, they don’t even know. For example the community where I grew up in, they didn't even know that there is psychology. Because mostly in schools, those schools we are taught about – most subjects are related to law, doctor, being an engineer, those kind of subjects. But in terms of social or societal problems or social sciences that could help us to understand subjects such as psychology or sociology, they were rarely or hardly spoken about. Like I actually knew about psychology when I came to South African and to get to understand it when I actually started to take my courses, my psychology one, that’s when I said oh, there’s psychology. Because apparently in those kind of communities, in those – in Zimbabwean rural communities apparently everyone can be a psychologist because they just think it’s just talking, just go to someone, you talk, you say your problems. So mostly if people have some, affecting some, some life challenges, just go to their aunties or uncles if they – just say this and this problem and then they just – it’s an adult. Like a family advisor that they just sit down, talk to you, advise you, that’s the only way you can speak about how you feel let’s say in terms of marriage, facing some marriage problems you go to your aunt and you say – you sit down with your aunt and the aunt can call your husband, you sit down, what’s happening? This and this is going on, it is this. It’s not like that you as a couple can actually say okay let’s seek counselling or couple therapy. There’s nothing like that. Okay, maybe there is there now but when I was growing up I didn't, I wasn’t aware of that. Q: Did you think when you came-?

A: So that’s-

Q: What did you think when you got to know psychology? Did you think there were any advantages to the community way of sort of aunties and uncles helping as opposed to psychology? Or do you just feel it’s better for psychology to do?

A: Pardon? Can you repeat that?

Q: I wondered when you started to learn about psychology, where there any ways that you felt that the old way of doing things where people speak to aunties and uncles had any advantages?

A: In some way yes, not really but in some ways. For example the aunt is someone who is trusted to this person. She is someone who’s close to this person and you know your aunt, you trust your aunt, it’s this relationship with your aunt. So it’s easy for you to tell her what’s affecting you. Just to talk all the secrets in your marriage for example, because you trust her. In that way, yeah it is people, because most of the time people are very, very reserved in terms of telling someone who is new to them, who is a stranger to them about their problems. That’s why the psychologists have to establish rapport and building relationship with the client, all that. So I think it was okay but it was also very, very limited in terms of you always go to your aunt because – but and the aunt, this aunt may lack some other professional advice or might not be as objective, that kind of stuff. Q: And I suppose for the group of people that you’ve worked with most with relation to LGBT issues or I guess family violence as well, but certainly LGBT issues, it’s not necessarily very easy to talk about that with an older family member who might have different views.

A: Yeah. In terms of, yeah like those kind of issues that are not labelled normal within the society, those kind of problems, they are difficult to talk to someone you are really close to. That’s why I said it was a limited way of saying things because you only go to your auntie. But you might find that you don’t really want to talk to your aunt about these issues but because she’s the only person who is available or who is meant to talk to you, you are forced to go and talk to the person. And the other thing is that most of these aunties, okay most of these adults or advisors, community advisors, are I don’t know in terms of – for example when you’re facing abuse within a relationship, you know those traditional way of doing things, like you have to fight for your marriage, you have to fight for your relationship, so you are kind of forced to stay in an abusive environment just because she’s an adult, she knows better. You’re not given an option to say okay look, there’s another way of looking at things. They are not even – even if you want to express yourself genuinely so, you won’t because there’s a lot of judgment also that goes into it. When you say okay I think I want a divorce, it’s something that is so negative, too great to them. So they’re like ‘what no! In our family we don’t do divorce’ so, you are kind of stuck.

Q: In traditional communities is there anywhere that people can go when there isn’t psychology? Is there anywhere that people can go outside their family to talk to people?

A: No. Unless it is really – maybe you can talk to your friend, just as a friend. Unless there’s a crime, for example in terms of sexual violence, then you say when a child or adult say I have been raped – it’s – the traditional way of doing things is always concerned not about the person but about the family. Family names, let’s say it’s a close relative, the perpetrator is a close relative, they are more concerned about the family name. How could you go there and say your father raped you? Our family name is going to be tarnished, those kind of things. Or a lot of rape myth also place people’s role in that even you’re saying ‘what were you doing in your uncle’s bedroom or what were you wearing?’ You know, those kind of stuff. So it’s – it lacks that awareness that we have in psychology when we talk about rape and victims survival, all those kind of – you find that you’re getting some advice but this advice is mainly not for you, for your own benefit. It’s just for the benefit of everyone.

Q: And I guess that was going to be my next question really, what you think psychology offers community? And you just said a little bit then about the way that psychology thinks differently about things like family violence. Would you say that is something that psychology offers community?

A: Yeah, definitely. Because firstly you have to educate people to know the difference between sexual assault, sexual violence, being raped, people to understand issues like consent, even within marriage. So-

Q: Do you think psychology has a place in that?

A: It has. A play in that because as psychologists we educate the community. We make the community understand some of the issues that are – we need to – we usually try to bridge the gap between this traditional way of thinking and what is actually happening. Like we shift attention from the family, trying to protect everyone in the family in terms of social violence happening within the family, and to look into an individual, an individual’s needs, psychological health, mental health, what we can do for this person for their survival. What can we do for her or for him in order to heal or to move past this or to deal with this, instead of – so when we – psychologically we, when we educate people about these issues, when we come out of the rape culture. Because it keeps happening because people normalize it in the communities. So it’s like ‘ah, it’s normal, ah, it’s this and that’, we sweep it under the carpet. But as psychologists we go out there and say this is actually – this actually – rape means you can’t say someone wanted it because they didn't shout. So when people become aware of these issues around rape myth they realize that what they’ve been doing previously, or what they’ve been defending previously in such a way was actually wrong. Or they see things differently. So when someone comes to them and says this and that happened to me they see it in a different angle, from a different angle, rather than if they were not exposed to such kind of knowledge.

Q: And in South Africa do psychologists, when you say psychologists bridge the gap and that they educate the community, are psychologists going into communities as the like the whole community and doing things in community or do you mean more that psychologists see individuals and talk to them that way? Is it, because things are probably different here. I think mostly people, psychologists mostly talk to individuals one at a time here. But I wondered if, when you said that you educate the community and you bridge gaps, are people going out into community?

A: In South Africa we have different types of psychologists. We have community psychologists, we have educational psychologists, we have clinical psychologists, counselling psychologists, research psychologists, industrial, it’s – there’s a range of ways psychologists can work into the community. So for example if they are clinical psychologist, you also do community work. So clinical psychologist, yes you have your time in your office with those - where you have sessions with clients. You see clients for appointments, but also you do this you do this community psychology when you go into the community. You can also do for example psycho-education. So you go into the community, for example you go into schools and you can just choose a school, whether primary school or the high school or university or you have centres within the community. Or for example there’s this one called Sonke Gender Justice community centre. So people go there to those centres especially youth. So you go to the psychologist and have sessions or workshops. So it’s like in a week you can go once, or twice, speaking with, a group of people who are coming to those sessions. When they are done I think another group comes in so you can have two or – two psychologist’s two groups at once going to there for a few weeks. So when you’re done meeting, you’re done with the group. So for communities, that’s for clinical and counselling psychologists. They are trying to interest the program to not only limited into your office space or your session spaces but to also go outside. And for community psychologists, those that actually work in the community, they do community work.

Q: Yeah that sounds-

A: And for research like they – yeah so for research psychologists you also do research, you can do research working with a simple survey, or working with the community. So for example all my research, when I’m researching about sexual violence, where do I get my participants? I get them from the community. Or I can get them from a message or from any other centre, just advertise or for the type of people you want to do that with.

Q: Are there ways in which psychologists, where that’s even more important to go into the community – what was I going to ask – is it even more important in rural areas or country areas, smaller villages that psychologists do more with community?

A: Right now the psychology program, they are trying to place people, for example interns, and they are third year and they’re supposed to do community work for the whole year, for them to qualify as psychologists. So what they do is that they try as much as possible to place their interns into rural communities because financially psychology is also expensive psychological services are also very expensive. So when you look into – when you look at the rural communities they hardly afford those kind of services. So when people are doing their internship year they are placed in those areas where there are – where mostly I don’t think they pay anything, the people that get those services. But the interns will get paid by the government. So that’s what they do. Q: Along that area of whether you go more into community in a rural area, I just wondered whether there’s debate in South Africa about whether psychology has to change or adapt to communities in South Africa? I suppose dominant psychology to me is like an American idea of what psychology is and in other countries often it’s not. So I wondered if there’s ways in South Africa that psychology has to change for community?

A: Yeah there is that debate going on in terms of – because South Africa is a multicultural community. So psychology has to adapt, to those. And there’s a debate going on as well about social and South African psychology, trying to make psychology suitable for the people of South Africa, for the South African communities, just to contextualize it so that people, your clients, understand it better. So yeah, there is that debate going on. And there is a change in programs as well when it comes to that, addressing those kind of issues. Like people are learning more about psychological – sorry, about South African communities so they can draw on examples from outside South Africa, from the UK, from Australia, from America. They can have those kind of horizons but they also have examples from the South African context. In terms of addressing this traditional way of doing things, they also look at traditional healers, the beliefs around witchcraft. They try to also try to see how that came into being, what people believe, and how they can make psychology fit into that in terms of not – because they can’t really say, go to the community and say, you know what leave your beliefs, believe this now. But you have to do it in a way that makes them realize on their own or that makes the traditional way, kind of enhance it if I may say. Q: So it’s almost a combination between - so psychology’s got to when you say bridge the gap as well, psychology’s also got to come and meet more traditional ideas and change a little bit towards them?

A: Yeah, just yeah. Just to kind of incorporate psychology into these – with people – without people totally throwing away what they believe but to say look at what you believe and look at the results or the consequences of that and see if you do it this way, look at the consequences as well. So now you give it to them, now they have choices to say okay there’s also another way of doing things. Or maybe if this – if they feel that this traditional, it’s not working, well there they can say okay let’s try this now. So if they find it working then now from their experience as well they can say I think psychology’s really helping us.

Q: There must be lots of traditional healing that happens around mental health because I suppose it happens with physical health as well, does it? But there must be a lot of involvement of traditional healing in mental health. Are there ways in which psychologists and traditional healers work together at all? Perhaps I’m asking the wrong question?!

A: No, I am not aware of that, of them coming together. I think they work independently but it’s just up to the person who is seeking help. So if we give them this knowledge, now I can say okay I’ve been to a traditional healer, what – how did that help me? And now I’m weighing the option. Okay let me try something new, let me try this, the therapy. So if I go to the therapy and I see how is – how it goes then I can – it starts from there, from trying new things because you have the knowledge of that, you have information about it. So in South Africa psychology is used quite well, quite a lot, especially in urban areas or in sub-urban. Even in sub-urban it’s quite – people have quite accepted it and mostly I see even from the sub-urban communities, they are still – they still have some beliefs but they are more likely to go to a counselling therapy session than to a traditional healer. Things are kind of changing in these areas. The only most stigmatized area is are those the rural rural.

Q: And there are fewer services there anyway are there, and they’re expensive as well so it’s hard?

A: It is. It is hard in terms of the costs.

Q: That’s great. I also wanted to ask a little bit, probably not too much more to talk about, but I really wanted to ask you with your LGBT work and your LGBT research, what psychology offers positively and negatively, but what psychology offers that community? Because you did that review of all the articles in the South African Journal of Psychology so I guess that gave you a really good spread of what people are doing in psychology and are there positive things and negative things?

A: In terms of that, I would say based on my review was that less is being done. It’s even psychologists are not really writing or publishing about sexuality issues, mostly because people don’t really want to talk about sexuality issues. They don’t want to talk about sexual violence. Sexual violence is something that is still underreported, like really underreported. People are – there’s silence around speaking about sexual assault experience. So I think based on that that’s why there are less of the articles or research on that. But I would say that in the community psychology is doing a very – is impacting a very good, a positive change in terms of for people to – because there’s a lot of judgment that ok, when we are talking about the LGBT community. People feel like there’s this abnormality going on when we’re talking about someone saying, “I’m gay.” So psychology tries as much as possible to make people see things differently. Like yeah normalising heteronormative sexuality and normalising this. So when you are writing, mostly writing in terms of research, we try to debunk those issues.

Q: Does psychology as a sort of academic group try to change ideas in government or policy or try to alter people’s ideas about sexuality and culture a bit or do you think that’s-?

A: Yeah. Especially altering people’s behaviour, thoughts, about the LGBT community, just to make people see things differently. When you are saying it’s abnormal, it’s not acceptable for a man and a man; you try to let people see things differently when you come with different ideas to them. You say actually no, people have sexual, transsexual orientation, other orientations, so you can’t really say deny what people, what a person follows and say this is the normal way. The issues of acceptance like why talking about acceptance in the first place? What needs to be accepted?

Q: And in South Africa has that been a long time that psychology’s been like that? Because I know in the UK or Australia we sometimes talk about the fact that psychology wasn’t always very positive about sexuality and gender.

A: It wasn’t. I think in terms of that we’re still referring to APA and the – when the – what is it?

Q: The American Psychological Association?

A: Yeah. When – so the moment I think kind of previous leaders kind of pathologizing that the LGBT. So when it was taken out of the – how do you say?

Q: The DSM, the manual about disorders?

A: Yeah. It came out it’s not ah it’s not a disease, so it’s not an abnormality. That’s where we – I think that’s the starting point from South Africa. The moment they took that out, that’s when people really realized, they start seeing things differently. Actually it’s not a disease; it’s not an abnormality. It’s just a different way of life.

Q: So it’s been a similar timeline then, culturally, in South Africa than America? Because I know it’s similar in the UK and Australia as well.

A: Yeah, I think so. Q: And I suppose that would be the last question, because I know you said to me before you weren’t sure about the idea that community would change psychology but I guess it took LGBT communities to say we’re here and we have these identities for psychology to change I suppose.

A: Yeah. It did actually, yeah. The way the community was determined to send out there identity related to psychology, changing its perceptions from that, and starting writing in ways that also enlightened the communities about the LGBT community. Yeah.

Q: And the only other thing I wanted to ask was something that I forgot to ask you earlier because I raised, I thought about it as you were talking. But you do research with LGBT communities, I just wondered is it difficult to go and talk to people about LGBT identity? I mean I suppose if you – do you only do research in urban areas or do you do-?

A: Okay the one I’m doing currently is on sexual violence. And it’s most – I’m using the sexual and citizenship theory from work. So that’s where the LGBT comes in, when I – in sexual citizenship. But mostly it’s sexual violence based and I talk to – Grahamstown is – it has another – it has a rural area part but is a very small city and mostly the people are from the university. And around is like the urban part of it is students, lecturers, professors, and there’s another side of the community where they are then – but the one I’m – okay so maybe say it is based on sexual violence but I’m using a case study. We have a silent protest; I don’t know if you’ve read about it? Silent protest that happens, that takes place at Rhodes University every year. So the silent protest is about – it’s targeting sexual violence. So people, some people, protestors, mostly involved in different events like taping the mouth where they don’t eat anything for the whole day. They silent march, all these things just to break the silence around sexual violence. So when I’m doing – so my research is based on that case study, looking at how participation in that protest promotes people’s understandings of sexualities issues in relation to sexual violence. Like who is involved?

Q: So who is involved, is it lots of people from different diverse communities or-?

A: Yeah. But mostly my participants were from - my participants are from – I’ve got students but Rhodes students from different communities. So they can come from …, we have this other area called …. They can come from … or they can come from extension 9 5, or they can be based in – on campus, especially if the person is coming from another city. Let’s say the person is coming from Johannesburg, she’s studying here at Rhodes. You see the difference. They are from Rhodes yes, but they are from different communities.

Q: Are some of them from more traditional communities or smaller communities?

A: Yeah. And some of them were also from the urban and some of them were also from the sub-urban.

Q: That’s really interesting. I’d like to hear about that research when you’re finished. It sounds really good.

A: I’m almost done. I am, I am writing up my anaysis.

Q: That’d be good to see. I think I’ve asked you everything that I can think of, unless there’s anything you can think of that you thought we should discuss?

A: Okay maybe I would like to know about, a little bit about your communities, the kind of communities you have in Australia and how they are receiving psychology?

Q: Shall I keep recording or shall I-?

A: It’s up to you.

Q: Yeah we can do. Why not? Some of the communities that we have in Australia, do you mean just what kinds, rural and regional and that kind of thing?

A: Mm hmm.

Q: So we have lots of – I don’t know how similar it is to South Africa actually. I definitely think there’s some parallel. I’m from England as well, I should say. So like you I’m not from the country I’m living in. And I’ve been in Australia for about eight years so similar. So I’m from England and now live in Australia so I’m not an expert. But people mostly live in very urban areas. So there’s about five large, very large cities in Australia. Because the rest of the continent is less habitable I guess, there are more people living in these. So Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, those sorts of cities, and they’re all very coastal because of the continent a bit. And then so it’s very, very – the population’s almost all in those areas but then there’s some different degrees of communities who live in semi-rural places. Like I would say that’s where I live. So I live about five hours away from a metropolitan city but the town has about 60,000 people but that feels fairly large because then there’s some very, very, very remote communities in Australia where there’s perhaps just 50 or 100 people and they live five or more hours away from the nearest town or shop. So there’s some very, very isolated communities because of the size of the continent. And then again the majority of the population is white, early migration, colonization. And I think that would be, I can’t remember the percentage of that, but it’s the majority. And then there is a smaller group who are people who have migrated to Australia who are not white. So for example there’s a very large Chinese population who have a very long, have a history as long as the white population of being here, and Indian populations and that sort of thing. And then the Indigenous population, so Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population of Australia is about 2%-3% of the population. And then in certain areas that population of Indigenous people is larger. There’s really, really stark poverty, disproportionately in the Indigenous population and also experiences of sort of multigenerational trauma, which comes from colonization. And it’s a very small number of people compared to the whole population, which I think is different in South Africa isn’t it because white people is a smaller population in South Africa, isn’t it? But there’s also sort of a complication about being a white colonizer but also being colonized themselves because a lot of people who were brought there to Australia were very poor and were prisoners and that sort of thing. So it’s a complicated country in that sense ethnically, but and then there are very urban Indigenous peoples and then it goes all the way to very, very traditional Indigenous peoples who are still practicing culture that’s 40,000 to 60,000 years old. So yeah does that explain? There are some very, very rural people with farms and that sort of thing and some very urban people who never leave the city. So it’s quite diverse and our university has all that diversity I think because we are sort of an inland university. So we’re not just metropolitan. Does that explain it? Is there anything else about community that you wondered around that?

A: So how do they – do they really see psychological services or how are they – are they negative about psychology or just a normal thing that the psychology, when you have problems you go to see a counsellor, psychologist, therapist or these?

Q: Yeah I think the urban population is quite comfortable with seeing psychologists, relatively. There’s still some stigma always, but relatively comfortable and have a lot of services that they can access. So there’s a lot more services in urban areas. And for people of diverse sexuality and gender as well, there are a lot more services that are tailored to any issues that they might be experiencing, and for young people particularly. Then as you get more regional and remote, people have fewer services and they want to see psychologists less. And I guess then there’s a split between how westernized a person is or westernized is not a very good word in Australia because we’re not in the west, but that sort of cultural idea of westernized. If someone feels more westernized then again they’re more likely to access a service I would say. So somebody in a quite – in a country rural town who is white, generational Australia is probably more likely to go and see a psychologist. I think for Indigenous people psychology is less, speaks less, I’m speaking completely now without expert knowledge, but I think psychology offers less for Indigenous culture. But again that depends on the Indigenous person. Someone who’s quite comfortable in an urban city maybe accesses psychology just fine but somebody who comes from a more traditional background has a very, very different idea of the world. So they don’t necessarily see the way psychology sees things. They don’t see things the same. And there’s some debate – some people try to get everyone to see the way psychology sees things but there’s a lot of debate in Australia about how to change psychology so it’s more relevant to Indigenous culture for example. But there’s fewer services. So in really remote areas sometimes they have fly-in, I don’t know if you’ve heard of flying doctors? That’s a very Australian thing. But you get tiny planes that fly to an area and because there’s very big distances. And so all the services will come on that plane. So there’ll be a psychologist and an I don’t know, some kind of medical specialist and various people will come just for the day. So there’s those sorts of ways of doing it as well, which again is good because it means like you said, you can see somebody who you don’t know and you can access that service. But they’re not people who understand that community or have spent time in the community. But of course there’s not resources for all services. And so there’s lots of online things as well, there’s lots of internet things. And I guess that suits the LGBT community a little bit sometimes as well because I do some work with younger LGBT people and they don’t really want to make anything obvious when they want to find questions and find answers. So going on the internet is a really great way, if you can access the internet, going on the internet’s a great way to find out things.

A: I think the flying, I think the flying thing you talk about is similar to South Africa but we don’t – they don’t use the flying, they use train. We have something called the … Train. So they are in different – I think four or five clinics, psychological, dental, for eyesight – for eyes?

Q: Optician, but maybe the specialist is another word.

A: Yeah. They have clinic for pharmacy clinic. So what they do is they travel from – so in those clinics the professionals, the psychologist, the clinical psychologist and they have interns, psychology interns or they’re psychology interns. And then in pharmacy they have the pharmacist and the students as well, interns as well. And it’s like that with other clinics. What they do is they travel to those areas that are so remote they cannot really access the psychological services or any services of that nature. So they go there and just ah station, at some place. So the community members know that on this day the train is coming for two weeks. So they’ll be going to see the psychologists, see a dental, a dentist, to see a whatever they want to see. So they get help for that, those two weeks and then the train moves to another area for two weeks as well.

Q: So I guess the problem in Australia is that we don’t have very many trains. We have terrible train – there’s not many train lines going anywhere so I guess planes have ended up being used. There’s not a very good transport system. Everybody drives cars or takes planes. There’s not many trains. So yeah so we don’t have the trains. That’s a really interesting idea though. So the people can come into the carriage? So is the carriage the clinic?

A: Yeah. Q: That’s really clever. That’s a good idea. And we have some really severe levels of poverty in Australia in very small amounts of community so it’s very small numbers and very small, but quite remote usually. It’s a problem Australia finds very difficult to fix, even though they’re quite small numbers. I know in South Africa there are I would probably guess bigger levels, bigger amounts of people who live in poverty and it’s a bigger thing to overcome. But in Australia I don’t know, it’s sort of very – well it’s difficult everywhere isn’t it? It’s just very difficult to overcome.

A: Okay.

Q: Well I’ll end the tape.

(Recorder switched off)