Old wine in new wineskins: Revisiting counselling in traditional Ndebele and Shona societies.

Abstract

The institution of counselling is present in all human communities as people share their sorrows, mentor, empower and advise each other. The service of advising and grooming is all that counselling is. This paper seeks to explore the institution of counselling in Shona and Ndebele traditional societies before the advent of western formalised counselling institutions. The research sets to prove that counselling is not a new phenomenon in these societies, that is a remnant of colonialism but rather it is an old institution that has been window dressed with western strategies and formalisms. African traditional counselling strategies as seen in the Shona and Ndebele examples emphasise more on the preventive forms of counselling than crisis counselling. Advice and mentoring are prioritised in these societies as a way of helping people stay out of trouble that in future will require therapeutic or crisis counselling. Modern day counselling has been professionalised and commercialised and requires people to pay for it yet in Shona and Ndebele traditional societies it was part of one’s responsibility to make sure others are well advised and counselled if they are emotionally troubled. Professional counselling in marriage, carrier guidance, teenage grooming for example is not a new practice but an old practice done differently like old wine in new wineskins.