The struggle for mental health in South Africa: Psychologists, apartheid and the story of Durban OASSSA

The article provides a critical account of the way in which a group of Sout h African psychologists and other mental health workers sought rouse their professions as instruments of resistance to apartheid. Through recounting t he history of the Durban branch of the Organisation Tor Appropriate Social Services in South Africa (OASSSA), a progressive anti-apartheid "social ser vice" organisation, the aims or the paper are two-fold: firstly, to suggest some of the ways in which the practice of this broad-based mental health a nd social service organisation challenged mainstream psychological thinking and began to develop some progressive psychological practices within the c onditions of apartheid repression and violence, and secondly, to note some of the difficulties and contradictions that arose in OASSSA's work with wor king class communities, given that the organisation's membership was largel y made up of middle-class academics and professionals. The paper concludes with a critical discussion of the extent to which the group succeeded in ac hieving its goals of (i) service delivery, (ii) the political mobilisation of psychologists, and (iii) the challenging and critical redefinition of th e terrain of psychological practice in South Africa. Copyright (C) 2000 Joh n Wiley & Sons, Ltd.