Welcome to the EPA 2022 Interactive Programme 

In developing countries mental health problems contribute to a large extent to disability and premature death. Populations in different African countries have special psychological needs that are difficult to address in mainstream mental health services. Psychotherapy research has rarely focused on specific needs in single populations in Africa.

This symposium aims to provide examples of the development and evaluation of targeted psychotherapeutic approaches for specific populations with defined mental health problems in several African countries. All projects stem from collaborations between African and German institutions and take into consideration aspects like sustainability and adaptation to cultural background.

All projects report successful psychotherapeutic approaches. All involved involve non-specialist professional actors to overcome resource problems and developed solutions to address the related challenges (e.g. training, supervision). The developed tools constitute of manuals that differed in the degree to which they were developed in African context or adapted from already existing evidence-based approaches from western countries. All presented tools were delivered in local languages but the degree to which local cultural believe systems were integrated into the developed solutions varied between the projects.

Psychotherapy research in African countries urgently needs to be strengthened. Future research needs to systematically study factors like degree of cultural independence and manualization vs. individualization of approaches.