Examining African Traditional Health Care

Abstract

This chapter discusses the importance of examining and sustaining African traditional health care while focusing on the role of indigenous healers and community health workers in helping to address mental illness. African indigenous healers have been key providers of health care and mental health care across sub-Saharan Africa for centuries. However, with complex histories of colonization that have included a bias favoring Western biomedicine, many colonial African governments introduced “anti-witchcraft” laws to prohibit the practice of traditional medicine. In spite of these efforts to thwart indigenous knowledge, traditional healers have continued to play an essential role in the health-care seeking – and, by extension, mental health-care seeking – decisions of many Africans, particularly those living in low-income and rural or remote regions of Africa. This chapter offers perspectives on indigenous health care and sustainability in sub-Saharan African countries, defines traditional healing, examines the role of traditional healers and community health workers in mental health-care provision, and provides examples of innovation and integrative health care in this context. The chapter concludes with an analysis of the current situation, based on the discussions presented in the text, and an identification of the salient lessons learned; ideas are offered about the way forward, especially as this pertains to a larger integrative health-care system.