From Theory to Practice

Ilse E. Plattner
University of Namibia

About the Difficulties of Studying

Psychology. A Namibian Case
When dealing with culture and psychology, one should be aware that
within certain cultures it can be difficult to study psychology. The
present contribution is not intended to be a scientific one; instead it
illustrates the problematic of customs with regard to the case of a
young Namibian man who wants to study psychology. This case can
also bring to awareness the fact that cultural circumstances can
contribute to a demise of the subject of psychology, even when the
necessary potential of individuals for the profession is there.

Lucas Wants To Study Psychology

Lucas,1 21 years old, lives in a rural area in the northern part of
Namibia. Namibia is a country in south-western Africa, bordered by
the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Botswana and Zimbabwe to the east,
South Africa to the south, and Angola to the north. The surface area is
824 268 km2, the population is at present about 1.6 million, with a
population density of 1.7 persons per square kilometre. Namibia was
colonized by Germany (1884–1915), and afterwards until 1990 by
South Africa and its political system of Apartheid. After 26 years of a
terrible liberation war, Namibia became independent in March 1990,
and is now a democratic country. Six main population groups with
different cultural backgrounds live in Namibia; the biggest group is the
Ovambo people, to which Lucas belongs.
When talking about rural areas in Namibia, one should know that

Culture & Psychology Copyright © 1999 SAGE Publications

(London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi)
Vol. 5(4): 471–476 [1354–067X(199912)5:4;471–476;010630]
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large parts of the country are desert or semi-desert areas. The distance
between villages and little towns can be hundreds of kilometres, and
often these villages and towns can only be reached by gravel roads. If
children from remote areas are to have access to school education, they
have to stay at boarding schools. School education in Namibia is
compulsory; however, school and hostel fees must be paid by parents.
Lucas’ parents are simple farmers, living in a village. Lucas stays in
a small town with relatives, in a former township to which, under the
South African Apartheid regime, black people were segregated and
where, until today, many black people live, often in very poor circum-
stances. The town is about 120 kilometres away from his parents’
village. There are no psychologists, and to get access to a library is
nearly impossible. All this has to be borne in mind when regarding the
following description because it renders all the more amazing Lucas’
desire to study psychology and his quite impressive thoughts about
human beings and society.
Last week Lucas phoned me for information about the psychology
course, and today he came into my office, after travelling 400 kilome-
tres to Windhoek to talk personally with me. He wants to find out what
topics we are teaching, how the study course is structured, how many
students are studying psychology, and the job opportunities as a
psychologist in Namibia.2 He knows exactly what information he
wants to obtain. His questions are specific, clear and well considered.
Lucas has concrete ideas about why he wants to study psychology,
and why he finds psychology especially important in Namibia. From his
point of view psychology offers the opportunity to open people’s eyes
about the manner in which they live their lives, and which restrictions
people create for themselves by following their traditional customs.
Lucas says that usually people only become conscious of themselves
when something happens like an ‘accident’. According to him, psychol-
ogists should start their work in the villages, not in towns, because the
customs and traditions of a culture and country are usually more mani-
fest in villages and rural areas, especially with regard to human
interactions (e.g. the acceptance of decisions of elders). Psychology
should contribute to self-awareness, to open-mindedness, and through
this enable individuals to foster their own way of life, which is, in Lucas’
opinion, part of their human rights. He believes that the customs form
the basis, and he means the basis for an acknowledgement of human
rights or for their disregard, for political activities or inactivity, and for
education. He illustrates his considerations by talking about the restric-
tions to which young people in Namibia are subjected owing to customs;
for instance, children are taken from school and sent to work, not just

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because of money, but mainly because of customs. Lucas tells of his older
brother, who has already progressed to the third year of a law degree;
now his parents have taken him away from university. They want him to
farm and care for cattle. The parents’ argument is ‘never before has there
been a lawyer in our family’. The brother accepts this because otherwise
he would be expelled from the family. And for an Oshingangala, an
outcast, life can be difficult, very difficult, says Lucas. Such a person will
be absolutely alone; the family and the whole community will not want
to have anything to do with him or her anymore.
In Lucas’ view it is a critical matter that many people in Namibia do
not enable their children to gain a good education. For him education
is very important. He says that without education people and societies
will not escape their economic misery. Tomorrow Lucas will go back to
his village, and then, he says, he must make a difficult decision. His
mother definitely does not want him to study. Neither does his father.
Lucas says that in general he has problems with his father. However,
this does not burden him much, because he explains the father’s behav-
iour in terms of difficulties he had with his own father and now—says
Lucas—he transfers these experiences to him. However, to break with
the mother will be terrible for Lucas. He can understand his mother: it
is not just she who is against his wish to study; more so it is the
extended family and the community who put pressure on the mother.
In his case, too, the argument is ‘never before has there been a psychol-
ogist in our family’. What makes the situation even more complicated
is the fact that none of the family knows what a psychologist is
anyhow. They even took Lucas to a witchdoctor because they believed
him to be ‘obsessed’ by his desire to study psychology. Lucas recounts
that this was a very, very bad experience for him which he never wants
to go through again in his life.
He stops talking for a while, and then asks me what I think about
black magic. I tell him that I personally do not believe in it, but that I
am sure that black magic takes effect as long as people believe in it. He
says he sees it in the same way; the belief is the decisive element, and
he himself thinks black magic and witchcraft are absolute nonsense.
Then Lucas relates how difficult life is for people who believe in it. For
instance, when a person in his community eats something bad and
feels sick afterwards, this will be immediately attributed to witchcraft.
What Lucas likes is to study human beings; he watches them
consciously and regards this as very important. Lucas works with
street kids,3 on his own, and for no money. He says that he knows each
one of his street kids very well, he has studied them one by one. He
recounts his little successes, also his defeats. Some of these street kids

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have already stopped drinking and smoking. However, one of the

girls, for whom he had high hopes, has now become pregnant. This is
depressing for him and last week he was very dejected because of this.
He believes 90 per cent of all young girls who become pregnant are
victims of rape, often without them understanding that this is a crime.4
They do not dare to take action against boys and men. For his work
with the street kids he has concrete ideas about leadership behaviour:
a leader should not stand in front and dictate; instead he should be in
the background. From this position a leader should guide youths by
means of specific questions in such a way that they can create their
own ideas and develop their own talents. Lucas always tries to commit
the kids to certain activities. Because of his ideas about leadership
behaviour, Lucas says, he is often at cross-purposes with people from
church,5 who believe a leader should call the tune.
At present Lucas is very closely attached to a Finnish pastor and his
wife who are working in Namibia. He talks with them a lot, often is
controversial, and sometimes he is successful in convincing the pastor,
after long discussions, of his own views. Obviously this couple
supports Lucas very much. Lucas says that he sees in them a new
father and mother. They also brought him back to school when Lucas
had been taken out of school by his father for two years. They will
organize a bursary from Finland for him; ‘A bursary for studies is not
a problem for me,’ he says, laughing and self-assured. The problem is
more that they will go back to Finland next year, and then he will have
no one left. No one. Lucas does not know whether he will be able to
live as an Oshingangala.
Lucas believes in God, also that with God there will be justice. The
people from the church want him to become a priest. However, he will
not do so. He considers studying psychology together with theology; it
is as if he wants to make a concession to the people from the church.
Also, Lucas does not want to become a teacher because he had bad
experiences with teachers during his schooling. He definitely does not
want to become a social worker, of the value of whose work he is not
convinced, because they mainly fill in forms for people, he says.
Lucas wants to study psychology and through this to contribute to a
change in society. He also wants to live his own life. Now he has to
decide whether he will act against his mother or not. This decision will
also depend on whether he will be admitted to the university; his final
school marks are not good.6
Lucas does not have favourable preconditions for studying
psychology, although he obviously has the best prerequisites for a
psychological understanding of human beings and society. He speaks

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so clearly, so naturally, that it is a pleasure to listen to him. He must

have thought much about his own ideas, otherwise he would not be
able to express them with such certainty. He relates that every day
before he goes to sleep he notes down the thoughts which came into his
mind during the day, in a diary. Still he is in all of this quite humble; at
the beginning of our conversation he was a little bit nervous, his speech
was not very fluent, his pronunciation not always understandable.
However, after a while he became increasingly self-confident, he
appeared taller, more and more adult, for all his youth.

Customs and Traditions and Their Restrictions

For me to meet Lucas was a very impressive experience. It is not usual
that a student travels hundreds of kilometres to see a professor person-
ally and to ask well-prepared questions about the intended subject of
study. It is also not usual that a young person has thought extensively
about human beings and society, and, based on this, has come to a clear
idea of why she or he wants to study psychology and what she or he
intends to do with this profession later on; quite a large number of
university beginners enrol in subjects that are suggested by parents,
friends, societal status or labour market forecasts.
I would not like to analyse or interpret Lucas as a person. What
makes the case interesting is that it creates an awareness of the fact that
it can be a luxury to study, and in addition to study psychology. The
situation that Lucas talks about may be typical for other African coun-
tries in which psychology is not yet well established. However, we
should not make the mistake of attributing such difficulties just to
African cultures. The case of Lucas reminds me very strongly of my
own biography: I was raised in rural Germany on a farm in the wilder-
ness. It was definitely not the idea of my parents and the—quite
influential—extended family that I should have a high school
education or even a university education. Through several difficult and
time-consuming ‘detours’, I finally made my way to the university and
to psychology. For more than 20 years I have been the Oshingangala, not
least because for my community my profession is a very suspect one.
Lucas’ case illustrates the problematic of customs and traditions in
general. Sophisticated people in Namibia, but also in western coun-
tries, like to talk about customs and traditions as something which
should be preserved, although usually those same people live far away
from the rules and regulations of their original community.
Individualism is often declared to be selfish and egocentric, while the
restrictions of collective norms are overlooked. Lucas’ case shows in

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practice how problematic a romanticization of culture and tradition

can be. Lucas himself has reflected on this. Because of the negative
consequences of customs and traditions for individual and societal
development, he suggests, psychology should start in the villages. To
study cultural customs and their restrictions in general should be part
of community psychology, in which, however, rural areas and the
problematic of customs is not usually emphasized; its results could
also contribute to life-span developmental psychology when it comes
to conditions of personal development during young adulthood. Thus,
Lucas focuses on a quite new approach to psychology, and this against
the background of his own difficulties in studying psychology.

Notes
1. Names and other details which could be used to identify the person
spoken of above have been changed. Similarities with real persons and
situations are accidental and not intended.
2. In Namibia there is only one university. At its Department of Psychology
about 280 students are enrolled, of those 35 to 40 students major in
psychology (psychology in general or industrial psychology) each year
with a bachelor’s degree. A master’s programme for psychology has been
introduced in 1998. The profession of psychology is not yet well
established. At present in the whole country only 28 psychologists are
registered and 10 are working in their own practice (according to the
Psychological Association of Namibia).
3. Street kids are a fact in Namibia, although there are no exact data about the
number of homeless children. However, the Namibian government has
started programmes to care for homeless children (information obtained
from the Ministry of Regional, and Local Government and Housing).
4. Teenage pregnancy is a big problem in Namibia, and rape of women and
girls is one of the most frequent crimes occurring in the country
(information given by the Women and Child Abuse Centre in Windhoek).
5. In Namibia there are many Christian churches which have a big impact in
community life.
6. In Namibia a new school system with new curricula has been introduced
recently. Lucas belongs to the first generation confronted with this new
school system and unfortunately had teachers who were not sufficiently
qualified to teach the new requirements in an appropriate way; I received
this information from the pastor to whom Lucas is strongly committed.

Biography
ILSE PLATTNER, a German psychologist, has been Professor of Psychology
at the University of Namibia since 1995. Her interests are in the realm of
social uses of psychology. ADDRESS: Prof. Ilse Plattner, Faculty of
Humanities and Social Sciences, Department of Psychology, University of
Namibia, Private Bag 13301, 340, Namibia.

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