Western- or Euroamerican-oriented African psychology considers African psychology as the study of behaviour (in African settings). This is an orientation (stance, position, perspective) towards Western Europe and the US which occupies the mainstream of psychology in South Africa. It is deeply influenced by a feeling, sometimes a belief, maybe a clearly spelled-out view or one that is implicit, that Western psychology is by definition psychology. Not African psychology – that is something else.

Western-oriented African psychology makes up the core content and concepts of what is taught in universities, the therapeutic modalities used in consulting rooms and psychiatric hospitals, and the research work that is published in journals and books. We are taught to accept the psychology topics and approaches and tools and interpretations and psychotherapeutic modalities coming from Canada, France, the United Kingdom, and a great deal more so from the US. And these are the things that we who are teachers teach our students. We come to believe that work from Somalia and Surinam, or Cameroon, Chile and China, is not quite psychology. We certainly struggle to think of those who have not qualified as doctors of psychology or psychotherapists as professionals able to help in alleviating psychological pain, or to explain the meaning of happiness (unless they belong in a fashionable category, like monks).

A Western-oriented African psychology stance assumes, implicitly or explicitly, that psychology is an undivided science. Some who subscribe to this stance believe that psychology is a science in the way that astronomy and chemistry are sciences – that is to say, that it is ever apolitical and value-neutral. But psychology is informed by politics and values in a way that natural scientists can never grasp. Many psychologists also fail to grasp the value-laden nature of their discipline. Or maybe they refuse to face up to the reality that humans are not stars, and societies are not chemicals.