Angele Wallis is a child psychotherapist and founder of the Psychoeducation in Communities Project, which helps community workers in Africa to offer better mental health support to children. Having grown up in the shadow of dictatorship in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Angele embarked on a personal odyssey that would involve both a confrontation with the collective trauma of her homeland, and an intensely personal immersion in Jungian analysis. Angele is now uniquely placed to mediate between radically different paradigms: the focus on the individual handed down by the pioneers of psychoanalysis in late 19th century Vienna, and an emphasis in many African cultures on community wellbeing.
Angele shares how Carl Jung's elaboration of the collective unconscious provided her with a framework to begin grappling with the paradoxes she had encountered growing up amid a pervasive belief in "witchcraft." Her studies in turn informed her work supporting children in Africa, from escapees from the Boko Haram insurgency in Nigeria, to young Kenyans who have lost parents to HIV/AIDS. Matthew and Angele go on to explore her perspective on the colonial legacy and present-day questions around racial justice and the Black Lives Matter movement. Angele explains that healing is ultimately always achieved through relationships, whether they be in a therapy room or a ceremony circle. By fusing wisdom from seemingly clashing cultures, we may discover unexpected new pathways to wholeness on in both our own lives, and in our communities.
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Psychoeducation in Communities Project