Thabani Khumalo

My career as a researcher has begun with the focus on addiction to opioids among youth from impoverished communities in South Africa. When an intellectual is a healer, I see a huge role research in Psychology can play in the emancipation of the underprivileged, unshackling the colonial past and mapping the future. I was trained as a community psychologist, and registered as a counselling psychologist. My orientation has grown to be vehemently African-centred. I have an interest in neuropsychology, social and critical psychology. Not enough is said about relating to African brethren. To be effective, I see community-based approaches, including the family of action and participatory action research, and a view from ecological perspectives. This is a concern with the immediate vicinity, bringing solutions and direction to challenges to a community who otherwise require re-orientation, re-skilling and engagement in shaping a different South Africa, that includes its Third World pockets and youth.