David Edwards

• PhD
• Professor Emeritus at Rhodes University

This is a narrative case study of the psychotherapy of Kelly (pseudonym) that describes processes that took place within the last 17 sessions of a longer therapy of 67 sessions over a period of 26 months. A phenomenologically grounded and coherent account takes readers on an experiential journey that enables them to live through aspects of the proc...

The account of Kelly's therapy (Edwards, 2022b), and the commentaries by Singer (2022) and Margolin (2022), each, in different ways, highlight the significance of multiplicity, and the importance of understanding it, for the practice of psychotherapy. For several decades, many approaches to therapy have recognized and provided guidelines working wi...

The account of Kelly's therapy (Edwards, 2022b), and the commentaries by Singer (2022) and Margolin (2022), each, in different ways, highlight the significance of multiplicity, and the importance of understanding it, for the practice of psychotherapy. For several decades, many approaches to therapy have recognized and provided guidelines working wi...

This article is situated within the framework of schema therapy and offers a comprehensive and clinically useful list of schema modes that have been identified as being relevant to conceptualizing complex psychological problems, such as those posed by personality disorders, and, in particular, the way that those problems are perpetuated. Drawing on...

When we first assess a client , we identify and analyze schema modes as p a r t o f t h e c a s e conceptualization, using the four mode categories: Healthy Adult, Child modes, Parent modes and Coping modes. We develop an u n d e rs t a n d i n g o f h o w these modes function in our clients' lives, and, in p a r t i c u l a r , h o w t h e y c o n...

Within the schema therapy model, schema modes are the shifting experiential states that individuals experience and their identification is central to case conceptualization and the planning of interventions. Differences in the naming and descriptions of modes in the literature suggests the need for systematic phenomenological investigation. This ar...

In schema therapy, the identification of schema modes is central to case conceptualization and the planning of interventions. Differences in the naming and description of specific modes in the literature suggest the need for systematic phenomenological investigation. This paper presents the second part of an interpretative phenomenological analysis...

This article reporsg on their personal and professional lives and on how they experienced them and responded. There were additional data from recordings of the mindfulness training sessions and a self-report scale, the Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale (DASS). Thematic analysis revealed a wide range of stressors experienced by the students and p...

If my children were studying psychology at University (they're not – that was over 20 years ago) or my grandchildren (but they're not in high school yet), I would want them to read this textbook. It draws attention to the enormous confusion in the field of " abnormal psychology " or " psychopathology " as the relevant phenomena are addressed (and o...

Although much has been written about the basic incompatibility of the dominant quantitative research model in psychotherapy and the qualitative preferences of the practitioner community, the recent developments detailed in this chapter have resulted in a growing rapprochement on both sides in the service of pragmatically improving the effectiveness...

We live in a world in which the word "care" too quickly becomes debased, narrowly focused on physical illness and the technical cures. In this beautifully written book, Kathleen Galvin and Les Todres emphasize how, as a result, important human dimensions of care are easily forgotten "by a service culture that has increasingly given primacy to targe...

This is a systematic case study of the psychological assessment and treatment of Zinhle (19), a Black South African student with chronic posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), following a rape at age 10. Based on voice recordings of the 9 sessions, a narrative was written documenting the key features of Zinhle’s experience and the process of therapy...

This article examines the experiences of nine rape survivors who participated in the Silent Protest, an annual protest march at Rhodes University that aims to highlight the sexual abuse of women, validate the harm done, and foster solidarity among survivors. Participants responded to a semi-structured interview focusing on the context of their rape...

This article presents the story of an isiXhosa traditional healer (igqirha), Nomzi, Hlathi (pseudonym) as told to the first author. Nomzi was asked about how she came to be an igqirha and the narrative focuses on those aspects of her life story that she understood as relevant to that developmental process. The material was obtained from a series of...

In this, the second of two articles, three interpretative investigations are undertaken of Nomzi’s story (presented in the first article) of her troubled childhood, her dreams of ancestors calling her to become an igqirha (isiXhosa traditional healer), her training by experienced healers, various rituals that were performed at different stages of h...

This is a systematic case study of the assessment and treatment of Anna (43), a woman presenting with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) following a drug-facilitated sexual assault that occurred over twenty years earlier. She was also diagnosed with avoidant personality disorder. Treatment with cognitive therapy for PTSD and social phobia was sup...

Few clinical studies have examined victimisation in the lives of lesbian women in South Africa and whether there are distinct implications for psychological treatment. This paper presents the assessment and treatment of a lesbian-identified South African survivor of childhood sexual abuse who, as an adult, was raped and later gang raped. Her victim...

This is a phenomenological-hermeneutic case study of Tariq who initally presented with panic disorder. It documents how as therapy proceeded, the underlying meaning of his initial panic deepened as its roots in traumatic memories of childhood emerged. There were four spaced phases of treatment over four years. The first focused on anxiety managemen...

In this article a practitioner oriented review of the literature on the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder is used to construct a phase-based model that can serve as a basis for case formulation and treatment planning. Treatments shown to be efficacious in randomized controlled trials are listed and two discourses about them are contrasted...

This systematic case study documents 27 sessions of assessment and treatment with cognitive therapy of Bongi (23) who presented with major depression, posttraumatic stress disorder and borderline traits. Bongi had been raised in a punitive environment, had been raped three times, the first time at age 9, and had been in a series of abusive relation...

In this article a practitioner oriented review of the literature on the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder is used to construct a phase-based model that can serve as a basis for case formulation and treatment planning. Treatments shown to be efficacious in randomized controlled trials are listed and two discourses about them are contrasted...

Background: Drug-facilitated sexual assault (DFSA) has emerged as a distinct category of sexual victimization and precipitates posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Few studies have examined the distinct psychological aspects of PTSD caused by DFSA. Gauntlett-Gilbert, Keegan and Petrak (2004) represent a notable exception and draw on cases, from t...

John, an urban African male who developed posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) following an armed robbery at the petrol station where he worked, was treated with 12 sessions of Trauma-focused cognitive behaviour therapy. Intervention involved a combination of psychoeducation, prolonged imaginal exposure, cognitive restructuring and behavioural assi...

This article describes the psychological assessment and treatment of Paul (12). For several years, he had received numerous diagnoses from a range of specialists and been unsuccessfully treated for epilepsy and obsessive-compulsive disorder. Treatment was based on a formulation-driven transdiagnostic approach. Soon it was clear that the correct dia...

Very intense emotions can be evoked in individuals who experience traumatic events such as being assaulted or raped, seeing a murder, being involved in a motor vehicle accident, or having one's home washed away in a flood. In this chapter, we focus on how counselors can recognize when clients have been exposed to trauma and the common symptoms they...

[From the introduction]: In Greek mythology, Typhon was the youngest son of Gaea (the Earth) and Tartarus (the underworld). Typhon was not a beautiful baby. He was a grisly monster with a hundred dragons' heads. He was one of the Titans, a group of powerful and dangerous creatures who rebelled against Zeus, the King of the Gods. The rebellion was c...

This article highlights the emerging literature on therapist responsiveness in psychotherapy and examines several concepts used to identify dimensions of responsiveness. Some methodological obstacles are identified to studying responsiveness in a systematic manner, and several examples of existing responsiveness research are reviewed. It is argued...

This article is a methodological commentary on Eells’ (2010) summary of his research on case formulation. It draws attention to an epistemological tension between a positivist and a qualitative/hermeneutic paradigm. I argue that the kinds of questions researchers are most concerned with in the field of case formulation are ones with direct relevanc...

The article presents a model for formulating and planning treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in South Africa derived from the existing literature and in conjunction with a review of a series of studies of cases treated using the guidelines of Ehlers and Clark's cognitive therapy. It is argued that the construction of psychotherapie...

This article reports a clinical case study of "Grace", a black Zimbabwean woman with post-abortion syndrome (PAS), a form of post-traumatic stress disorder precipitated by aborting an unwanted pregnancy. She was treated by a middle class white South African trainee Clinical Psychologist. The case narrative documents the assessment and the course of...

This systematic clinical case study describes the psychological assessment and treatment with cognitive therapy of Zanele, a Xhosa-speaking adolescent rape survivor with major depressive disorder and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). A case narrative was developed to document the main features of the therapy process and progress was monitored u...

This article addresses the long-standing divide between researchers and practitioners in the field of psychotherapy, regarding what really works in treatment and the extent to which interventions should be governed by outcomes generated in a "laboratory atmosphere." This alienation has its roots in a positivist paradigm, which is epistemologically...

This article reports a systematic clinical case study of the psychological assessment and treatment of Daniel (9), a coloured South African boy with a diagnosis of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) (inattentive type). The case is of scientific interest because: (1) there was only a single treatment session, in which contingency manage...

This article reports a systematic clinical case study of the psychological assessment and treatment of Daniel (9), a coloured South African boy with a diagnosis of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) (inattentive type). The case is of scientific interest because: (1) there was only a single treatment session, in which contingency manage...

Macleod (2009) criticizes Boulind and Edwards (2008) for using the concept of post-abortion syndrome (PAS) in their conceptualization of the case of Grace. This article responds to this by arguing the following points: 1) the appropriation of PAS into anti-abortion rhetoric is not sufficient reason to abandon it since this rhetoric distorts the fac...

The article presents a model for formulating and planning treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in South Africa derived from the existing literature and in conjunction with a review of a series of studies of cases treated using the guidelines of Ehlers and Clark's cognitive therapy. It is argued that the construction of psychotherapie...

Hougaard et al. report an embedded case study in which nine socially phobic clients were treated as part of a therapy program, which incorporated individual and group therapy and which was largely delivered by trainee clinicians. An important focus of the report is on the effectiveness of their treatment model. This commentary draws attention to th...

This article describes the translation of the Beck Depression Inventory-II, the Beck Hopeless Scale, and the Beck Anxiety Inventory, into Xhosa the language spoken in the Eastern Cape of South Africa. The processes of translation, back-translation and committee discussion failed to yield trustworthy translations because of practical difficulties in...

The Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II), the Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI), and the Beck Hopelessness Scale (BHS) were translated Into Xhosa, a language widely spoken in South Africa to yield translated scales referred to as the XBDI-I (Xhosa BDI-II), the XBAI (Xhosa BAI) and the XBHS (Xhosa BHS). These scales were administered to a sample of 122...

This article provides data on the validity of the Xhosa versions of the Beck Depression Inventory-II (XBDHI), the Beck Hopelessness Scale (XBHS) and the Beck Anxiety Inventory (XBAQ based on a sample of 122 Xhosa respondents which Included students and patients. For patients, clinicians completed rating scales of Depression and Anxiety symptoms. In...

This article reports a clinical case study of “Grace”, a black Zimbabwean woman with post-abortion syndrome (PAS), a form of post-traumatic stress disorder precipitated by aborting an unwanted pregnancy. She was treated by a middle class white South African trainee Clinical Psychologist. The case narrative documents the assessment and the course of...

This paper provides a historical perspective on the recent increase in the clinical application of imagery techniques to restructure systems of implicational meaning that drive emotional distress or self-defeating behaviors. Janet's early application of such techniques was largely ignored except by a few hypnotherapists. Current applications in cog...

There is still a need for advocacy in the promotion of case study research because there has been insufficient appreciation of its role as a source of evidence relevant to the development and evaluation of practice in psychotherapy. Distorted use of terms like "gold standard", "anecdotal",and "empirical" in the discourse in which research methodolo...

This article is a response to commentaries by Davison (2005), S. Fishman (2006), Sanderson (2006), and Turk (2006) on Edwards and Kannan's (2006) case study, which documents the response to group therapy of Vumile, a South African student with social phobia. The case material is discussed in relation to five themes raised by the commentators: (a) t...

“Vumile” was a patient in a cognitive therapy group that was designed for socially phobic African students and based on a therapy model developed by Clark and Wells. The case narrative shows how Vumile constructed a personal model of the factors maintaining his social phobia, and within the group and through homework challenged negative beliefs, re...

"Vumile" was a patient in a cognitive therapy group that was designed for socially phobic African students and based on a therapy model developed by Clark and Wells. The case narrative shows how Vumile constructed a personal model of the factors maintaining his social phobia, and within the group and through homework challenged negative beliefs, re...

This paper, a phenomenological case study, describes the psychotherapy of Langu (pseudonym), a 21-year-old student, who presented with Acute Stress Disorder following a series of motor accidents that affected him and his family. Langu's most distressing experience was having to identify his brother's mutilated and severely burned body. Because of t...

To increase the availability of HIV/AIDS counselling in South Africa, nurses have been trained to serve as counsellors within hospital services. The aim of the study was to document the experiences and needs of nurse HIV/AIDS counsellors at a small South African hospital (with 279 beds and 10 medical doctors on the staff). The design was a qualitat...

Conduct Disorder (CD) is a widespread problem in southern Africa. The aim of the study was to design, implement and evaluate a multi-modal cognitive-behavioural intervention based on treatments developed overseas, in order to investigate whether this approach can be transported to a South African school for deprived children. The target adolescent...

Discussions about consciousness are complicated by the fact that participants do not share a common underlying “ordinary” consciousness. Everyday experience is founded on what Teasdale calls implicational cognition, much of which is not verbally formulated. An unacknowledged aspect of debate is individuals’ attempts to negotiate the expression of t...

This article introduces a special issue of the Journal of Psychology in Africa on post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in Africa and particularly in South Africa and examines the critical debate that has surrounded PTSD research. It begins with an examination of the meaning of the term trauma, and of its specialised use within the clinical context...

This article briefly surveys the extent to which traumatic events are a feature of life all over Africa and provides a comprehensive review of research that documents the pervasiveness of traumatic events in South Africa and the prevalence of PTSD symptoms. The material reviewed includes statistics on crime, violence and accidents, research from cl...

This paper documents the approach and experience of Traumaclinic, a Cape Town based organisation offering a trauma support service. The controversy over single session debriefing interventions is examined and it is concluded that interventions that invite intense emotional expression should not be offered indiscriminately or forced on those who do...

This article begins with two case examples of a girl and an adolescent who were raped and developed chronic PTSD. These are used as a basis for understanding the role of a range of factors that are associated with resilience and vulnerability in the face of traumatic events. A literature review examines the proportion of individuals who develop PTS...

This paper, a phenomenological case study, describes the psychotherapy of Langu (pseudonym), a 21-year-old student, who presented with Acute Stress Disorder following a series of motor accidents that affected him and his family. Langu's most distressing experience was having to identify his brother's mutilated and severely burned body. Because of t...

Several psychological factors contribute to the development and maintenance of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) because they interfere with the emotional processing of the traumatic event. These include problematic and painful emotions such as anxiety, shame, guilt and grief, distorted or dysfunctional cognitions, and cognitive, emotional, and...

How can practitioners engage in evidence-based practice when the evidence for effectiveness of psychological treatments comes from randomized controlled trials using patient populations different from those encountered in everyday settings and treatment manuals that seem oversimplified and inflexible? The authors argue that important evidence about...

A high frequency of behaviours and attitudes associated with bulimia nervosa among black respondents, including males, has recently been reported in South Africa. The aims of the present study were to replicate these findings using a sampling procedure which would yield few refusals or dropouts, and to interview black males with bulimic symptoms to...

This paper reports two studies, which contribute to the increasing evidence that the attitudes and behaviours associated with eating disorders, are encountered among bothlack and white females in South Africa. In Study One, the Eating Disorders InventoryEDI) was administered to black (n=39) and white (n=41) female students in Natal. There were no s...

Cognitive-behavioural conceptualisations of chronic pain (Catalano & Hardin, 1996; Fordyce, 1976; Pilowsky, 1986; Sarno, 1991; Turk & Meichenbaum, 1994), suggest that common predisposing factors are (1) alexithymia (a trait of limited awareness of different emotional states, inability to express emotional states in general); (2) external locus of c...

The paper reports a study of stress responses in workers at a sawmill in a small rural community which had been affected by prolonged industrial relations conflict. Workers went on strike in July 1997 over a dispute over contributions to a provident fund and there was much conflict and hardship in the community in the ensuing months. In December, a...

This paper describes a conceptual framework for understanding the phases of casebased research. Case-based strategies in research are widely used in case study methodology as well as in a number of qualitative methodologies including grounded theory development, phenomenological research method and psychotherapy process research. The epistemologica...

This article argues that the case study design is a research method capable of providing valuable data and insight into alternative therapies. The background and roots of the case study in medicine and clinical practice are covered, and the status of the case study as a scientific method is examined. The highly regarded randomized controlled clinic...

[From the text]: Over at least the past decade there has been a new appreciation of the value of the case study. It is the purpose of this chapter to outline the basic principles through which systematic in-depth description and analysis of individual cases contribute to the development of clinical theory and practice. When these principles are und...

Thirty black Xhosa-speaking unskilled workers, aged between 28 and 59 years, completed three questionnaire measures of stress: Bluen and Odesnik's Township Life Events Scale, Weiman's Occupational Stress Scale and Melamed's Emotional Reactivity Scale. Other variables measured were age, systolic and diastolic blood pressure and body mass index (BMI)...

Recently Taylor and Boeyens (1991) showed that the South African Personality Questionnaire has inadequate internal consistency and factorial validity for use in the black population. This paper reports a study supporting their conclusion that scales developed with data from a white sample do not hold together psychometrically or conceptually when u...

In the first study, a small sample of Black students in South Africa were found to have markedly higher scores than Whites on the Rosenbaum Self-Control Schedule (RSCS; Rosenbaum, 1980b). In a second study, in which acquiescence response set and social desirability were controlled, Black students (n = 100) again had markedly higher scores than Whit...

Summarizes data on the high prevalence of hypertension in the various South African race groups and on the low rates of diagnosis and treatment. Research on the possibility of genetic susceptibility of Blacks to hypertension is reviewed. An analysis of the political, economic, and social context and the state of the health care infrastructure in So...

Explores the potential role of educational, cognitive, and behavioral change strategies for the treatment of hypertension in South Africa. Strategies that can be used as an adjunct to, or in place of, medication include improving patients' adherence to treatment regimens, educating and training in weight reduction and smoking cessation, healthy die...

In this article the successful behavioural treatment of a seven-year-old retarded black township girl is described. The girl presented with (a) pica (indiscriminate eating of non-food substances such as soap, earth, paraffin, candles, rubbish etc.), (b) hazardous unsupervised playing with matches, (c) aggressive behaviour and prolonged crying, and...

This article describes the application of a guided imagery psychodrama technique to emotionally charged early memories. Such memories provide access to core schemata about the self and social relationships. Two case studies illustrate how the imagery technique enables the therapist to identify and restructure key cognitions out of which the schemat...

The relationship between the cognitive-behavioral and existential-phenomenological traditions in therapy is examined. While Beck cites phenomenological writers such as Heidegger, Husserl, and Binswanger, he does not initiate any dialogue with this tradition in depth. Parallels are drawn between the goals of psychotherapy as outlined by Rogers and g...

[From the text]: Words are powerful tools of thought and communication, but visual imagery has a similar role that is more archaic, powwerful and encompassing. The human infant represents the world to himself or herself in imagery and fantasy long before he or she says his or her first word. The signs of the use of visual imagery still remain in ca...

In a study of political and cultural identity among Black South Africans, subjects from three localities indicated the degree of importance to them of twelve identities which included African, South African, Black, Ciskeian, Xhosa, urban/rural. Analysis of variance and factor analysis were employed. Patterns of identity in each locality were interp...

Twenty male and 16 female psychology students who participated in a personal growth program in which structures involving interpersonal touch were used filled out a questionnaire evaluating their experience of touching and being touched. Factor analysis yielded five factors. The first, taking up 50% of the variance was labeled “openness to explorat...

One hundred and eighty-six white and 225 black first-year psychology students at the universities of Rhodes and Fort Hare completed a modified form of Wrightsman's Philosophy of Human Nature scale as a measure of perception of one of five race groups. Black respondents perceived their own group as more Trustworthy, Conventionally Good and Variable...

Nine male and thirteen female psychology students who participated in a personal growth training programme based on co-counselling, and a matched control group, completed Shostrom's Personal Orientation Inventory both before and after the programme. The inventory was also completed six months later by eleven of the original sample. There was a gene...

In western culture the use of touch in interpersonal relations has, as far as possible, been avoided. Partly this was because the touching of infants and children was believed to encourage dependency and weakness, and partly because touch between adults was seen as almost exclusively a sexual matter. This view of touch has now been re-evaluated and...

Sixty-four black and white, male and female high school pupils (aged 17–18) in South Africa were given a crowding perception test (CPT) and a doll placement task measuring the closest and farthest interpersonal distances perceived as comfortable (personal space and separation tolerance). In the CPT, blacks placed more figures in a simulated room th...

A model of the cognitive basis of the subject's response to projective measures of interpersonal distance is described and used as a basis for arguing for the validity of these methods in research on cultural patterns of interpersonal distance regulation.