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Interpretation of Challenges and Treatment among Secular and Religious Counselors in Ethiopia
by Ruth Befekadu
Faculty Advisor: Cristine H. Legare, Ph.D, Graduate Student Mentor: Faiz Hashmi
Mental health issues can include or be associated with a wide variety of challenges. Prevalent cognitive-level mental health issues like common mental disorders or associated functional-level challenges like interpersonal problems can effectively be treated by counseling methods. In the Ethiopian context, evidence-based secular counseling was recently introduced and coexists with the widely used religious care system. This paper explored how secular counselors and Orthodox Christian leader counselors interpret and counsel for the most common challenges they encounter. This exploration elicited multiple themes including (1) secular counselors’ prominent focus on treating cognitive challenges and religious counselors’ prominent focus on treating functional challenges, (2) low help-seeking for secular counseling and high help-seeking for religious treatments, (3) a presence of cultural and linguistic nuances in locally conceptualized mood-related challenges, (4) prominent environmental and psychological causal explanations among both counselor groups; physiological causal explanations among secular counselors, and supernatural explanations among religious counselors, and (5) use of psychotherapy by secular counselors, and the incorporation of guidance, consolation and religious features by religious counselors.