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The Use of African Proverbs to motivate Clients In Meseron Therapy
(International Journal for Psychotherapy in Africa, 2018) Onisile, Deborah
African proverbs use metaphors for practical living and for dissemination of wisdom intricately woven in conversations to accomplish acts which cannot be realized by ordinary words. Believed as handed down from the ancestors African proverbs are highly esteemed. Meseron therapy draws on African belief in the potency of the spoken words, affirming that people have psychological problems because of faulty speaking. That what we say or what is said about us affects our thought and behaviour. To correct the psychopathology, Meseron theorizes “saying it right” (rejecting wrong unwholesome words) taking covert actions at the level of thought and overt actions in form of words and deeds. To motivate clients Meseron therapists can incorporate some salient attributes of African proverbs such as their embedded expression of conventional truth which clients easily identify with without doubt when used by therapists, their brevity and easy to remember and understand nature which can influence clients perceptive capacity, appeal to their reasoning, and make them see self defeatist words as abnormal and pathological. Qualities such as availability, strong tool of persuasion, having a base of practical experience, common sense, intellectual richness worth listening to and obeying, make African proverbs a veritable tool in Meseron approach