XHOSA-SPEAKING SCHIZOPHRENIC-PATIENTS EXPERIENCE OF THEIR CONDITION -PSYCHOSIS AND AMAFUFUNYANA

This study investigates the experience of 10 Xhosa-speaking schizophre nic patients attending a community psychiatry clinic in Cape Town. Dra wing on social constructivist theory, and its critique of psychiatric constructions of psychopathology and culture, the study explored psych iatric patients' construction of their experience of their condition. in face-to-face open-ended interviews, patients were asked to describe their experience of their condition and its treatment, and their unde rstanding of aetiology. Analysis of the transcribed in interviews empl oyed qualitative methodologies. While patients frequently described th eir condition in terms of 'amafufunyana' or 'nerves', they reported th at their preferred made of treatment had shifted from consultation wit h traditional healers to use of psychiatric services. Discussion notes (1) the apparent anomaly between explanatory models and preferred mod e of treatment, (2) the complex uses of the term amafufunyana, which i nclude diagnostic, explanatory and aetiological functions, and (3) in the absence of 'psychological' language, the presence of 'medicai' and 'mystical' language. It is argued that the separation of amafufunyana and psychosis is a false dichotomy, since patients employ both ina co mplex web of psychiatric, religious and social constructions. The impo rtance of the consideration of patients' experience for the developmen t of psychiatric services is stressed.