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The attitudes toward death and dying of 163 Xhosa-speaking respondents living in Transkei, South Africa were assessed by means of semi-structured interviews. Eight aspects of death were studied: personal death, death of others, the right to know about one's impending death, preferred length of life span, preferences for manner of dying, and place of death, euthanasia, and suicide. A number of critical factors in the formation of attitudes were related to the above: age, gender, belief in life after death, educational level, and exposure to death and dying. The findings concerning the salient aspects of death and dying were in many ways similar to those from previous studies in African as well as western societies. Age, gender, belief in life after death, and education influenced the number of respondents reporting certain attitudes in a number of cases.

Clinical Psychology training is an arduous journey wherever in the world one pursues it. However, in apartheid South Africa, the experience of becoming a psychologist held its own unique challenges, especially if you were a person of Colour. This article chronicles some of the barriers and hurdles that I had to overcome in order to train as a psychologist in a country where it was almost not expected that Africans could train as clinical psychologists! The story relates some of these training experiences, as well as aspects of my life in exile in the United States, and finally some of my political and related practice experiences in the latter years of apartheid. While many of the professional training challenges that are described may surprise recent Psychology graduates, it is crucial that younger members of the Psychology fraternity are made aware of the history of their profession.

The attitudes of South African clinical psychologists on current issues in clinical practice and theory were investigated. A modified version of Garfield and Kurtz's (1976) questionnaire was completed by 137 registered clinical psychologists in South Africa. Demographics as well as information on professional activities, theoretical orientation, and degree of satisfaction with clinical psychology as a career were elicited. Factor analysis of the ratings of attitudinal items revealed three factors: Practitioner, Psychoanalytic-Psychodynamic, and Research. Significant associations occurred for theoretical orientation, age, and sex on Psychoanalytic-Psychodynamic and sex on Research. The present findings were compared with those of similar American and Australian studies. Analysis of responses to items measuring attitudes specifically on South African issues indicated a lack of agreement on items reflecting social, cultural, and economic concerns.

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