Clinical psychology is an underdeveloped profession in Ghana, with insufficient empirical research to guide interventions. In the face of this, it is unclear whether individuals may benefit more from localized interventions that incorporate cultural traditions and spiritual beliefs, rather than solely Westernized interventions. To better inform interventions and advocate for improved mental health policy in Ghana, this study sought to explore possible relationships between depression, anxiety, somatization, general psychological wellbeing and spirituality. The study also explored Ghanaians' subjective self-assessments of spirituality and perceptions of the causes and treatments of mental illness using qualitative in-depth responses. Results from the adult sample of 448 Christians, Muslims and Traditionalists showed significant negative correlations between depression, psychological wellness and spirituality. Qualitative responses revealed that while spiritual interventions for mental disorders was most frequently stated, a large number of responses favored psychological interventions as treatment options as well. The implications of these for treatment and policy are discussed.

Proverbs are widely used by the Akan of West Africa. The current study thematically analyzed an Akan proverb compendium for proverbs containing emotion references. Of the identified proverbs, a focus on negative emotions was most typical. Emotion-focused proverbs highlighted four emotion regulation strategies: change in cognition, response modulation, situation modification, and situation selection. A subset of proverbs addressed emotion display rules restricting the expression of emotions such as pride, and emotional contagion associated with emotions such as shame. Additional themes including: social context influences on the expression and experience of emotion; expectations of emotion limits; as well as the nature of emotions were present in the proverb collection. In general, Akan emotion-related proverbs stress individual-level responsibility for affect regulation in interpersonal interactions and societal contexts.

Studies on adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), which have been conducted predominantly with samples from Western cultures have found ACEs to be associated with poor health outcomes and relational impairments in adulthood. This study sought to contribute to the ACEs literature by investigating the long-term consequences of ACEs on the interpersonal functioning of adult survivors in Ghana, a non-Western culture. In the current study, the associations of five ACEs (high parental conflict, physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, and neglect) with four types of relational impairments (alienation, insecure attachment, egocentricity, and social incompetence) were examined using a community sample of 403 adults who retrospectively provided self-reports of ACEs. The most frequently reported ACE in this sample was high parental conflict, while sexual abuse was the least frequently reported ACE. Participants with ACE histories had significantly more relational impairments than those with no ACE histories, however multiple regression analyses revealed no significant relational impairments in adulthood following any ACE experience, whether alone or in any combination, suggesting that cultural values such as collectivism and religiosity may play a protective role against ACEs negative effects in the interpersonal domain. The study’s limitations, and the implications of these findings for the Ghanaian and other similar contexts are discussed.

The "pull him/her down" or the "PhD" syndrome is the Ghanaian colloquial term for malicious envy, the arousal of primitive urges to destroy the good fortune of someone simply because one lacks what the envied other has.Behaviors motivated by malicious envy and which result in the "pulling down" of others in a country classified as collectivistic and highly religious appear contradictory, however, and this paper aims to shed light on this seeming contradiction. Conceptualizations of envy, cultural dimensions of collectivism, religiosity, and patriarchy which counterintuitively enable "pulling down" behaviors, the three different categories of PhD syndrome perpetrators, and the influence of sibling dynamics in the PhD syndrome's enactments are explored. Recommendations for mitigating expressions of the PhD syndrome are also discussed.

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