Sally Swartz
Biographic Data
| ID | 3811977 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Sally Swartz |
| GIVEN NAMES | Sally |
| FAMILY NAME | Swartz |
| SIGNATURE | SWARTZ S |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Cape Town |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 35 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 65 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 35 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1982 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Gardening in Africa
Africa, the enigmatic continent bursting with wisdom and life, but also with droughts and starvation, bloody conflict and undemocratic democracies, seldom allows me to settle into a state of ongoin
Splitting, Confusion, and Hope
The Internal Objects of Apartheid
There are folds in time, created by trauma. They foreclose the future, the blossoming of choice and ambition. They foreclose the rich tapestry of the past, channeling events into a single path, lea
Beyond recognition
This paper is an exploration of possible journeys towards freedom from colonial states of mind. These inner worlds are the distorting forms of self‐observation brought about by living under oppressive conditions, and includes those associated with colonialism itself, and also coloniality, the enduring legacy left behind by colonial regimes. Fanon describes the effect of colonialism on subjectivity as creating “a zone of nonbeing” and suggests fre…
Psychoanalysis and Colonialism
Tilts and Drives
Steven Cooper’s lucid and persuasive paper (this issue) brings to our attention the many ways in which Winnicott was unfairly represented in Stephen Mitchell’s paper on the developmental tilt in psychoanalytic theorizing. Winnicott is not to be boxed; his writing and his practice reach forward into issues of play and intersubjective airiness seemingly unrecognized in Mitchell’s paper. At the same time, it is important to recognize the ways in whi…
Time, Space, Isolation
Giving In, Giving Up, and Being Blown to Smithereens
In describing the paralysis that encumbers those struggling with persecutory guilt about their white privilege, and suggesting we seek opportunities for meaningful repair within the realm of the ordinary, Caflisch (this issue) is directing us toward an ethic of personal accountability to everyday interaction. This paper explores possible routes toward the “ordinary” reparation Caflisch seeks, and describes several pitfalls that might be encounter…
A Mingling of Ghosts
In this brief commentary on Butler’s description of ruptures and violences of setting, so dense with possibilities for debate and elaboration, four central themes are explored: a rumination on the word “visceral,” suggesting that nonbelonging is never a ghostly experience; “plucking up a protest,” and the paradox of needing for a place of belonging before protest is possible; the bewildering multiplicity of ghosts in protest movements; and how we…
Asylum case records
This paper raises a series of historiographical issues about the nature of lunatic asylum archives. It addresses one central thread, namely the relationship between the phenomenology of mental illness, and the many kinds of records in which it is reflected. It suggests that there is a fundamental paradox involved in the rational, orderly and coherent representation of mental illness generated by lunatic asylum bureaucracy, and the chaotic multipl…
Feminism and psychiatric diagnosis
The professionalization of psychology within the apartheid state 1948–1978
When the National Party came to power in South Africa in 1948 it inherited an ageing colonial psychiatric system underpinned by British-based mental health legislation promulgated in 1916. This situation remained substantially unchanged until the late 1960s, despite the apartheid government's far-reaching attempts to restructure other aspects of the social landscape. The 1966 assassination of South Africa's prime minister by a schizophrenic parli…
Individual Psychotherapy as Treatment of Choice
Individual psychotherapeutic interventions conducted at the University of Cape Town Child Guidance Clinic (CGC) between 2000 and 2009 were investigated quantitatively with a view to offering informed conclusions on the current nature of clinical practice at the Clinic. Considering relevant socio-economic, political and pedagogical contexts of the Clinic's work, some observations are also offered on the applicability of such individual psychothera…
The Construction of Shame in Feminist Reflexive Practice and Its Manifestations in a Research Relationship
Despite the psychically toxic nature of shame, it has historically been under-researched and under-theorized. However, a recent burgeoning of literature has brought an increasing awareness of shame as a pathogenic force. An investigation of this noxious affect is especially pertinent in the context of feminist qualitative research. The authors consider the significant effect of shame on a specific dialogue that unfolded with a female survivor of …
The regulation of British colonial lunatic asylums and the origins of colonial psychiatry, 1860–1864
In this paper I outline a brief period in the history of the British Empire, during which colonial lunatic asylum policy began to be formulated. I begin with a scandal that erupted in Jamaica and suggest that this set in motion processes that led to critical changes in asylum administration. The first of these processes was an audit of hospitals and asylums in the colonies. The results of the audit and the policy that emerged from it marked the b…
The Third Voice
The article examines the activity of writing case-notes. For this purpose, case-notes are broadly defined as textual records of encounters between mental health practitioners and their clients. The primary focus is on psychotherapy notes, written for private use. It suggests that note writing is potentially a lively addition to the dialogue within the therapy room, an essential part of the unique relationship that grows between practitioner and c…
Surfacing Up
Journal Article Surfacing Up: Psychiatry and Social Order in Colonial Zimbabwe, 1908–1968 Get access Lynette Jackson, Surfacing Up: Psychiatry and Social Order in Colonial Zimbabwe, 1908–1968, Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2005. Pp. 248. $24.95. ISBN: 0–8014–8940–7. Sally Swartz Sally Swartz 1University of Cape [email protected] Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic PubMed Google Scholar Social Hi…
Can the Clinical Subject Speak
This paper is concerned with the extent to which the clinical subject, in postcolonial clinical encounters, is able to speak, and be heard, through and beyond the structures of clinical theory and practice. The paper aligns itself theoretically with the project of Subaltern Studies, and particularly the work of Spivak, in her quest ‘to learn to speak to (rather than listen to or speak for) the historically muted subject of the subaltern woman’. I…
Mineral Wealth and Medical Opportunity
With the increase in population and in colonial revenues after the discovery of diamonds and gold in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, public and private hospitals proliferated, particularly in larger centres such as Cape Town. The numbers of practitioners engaged in public health also increased. Perhaps as important, doctors were now accepted as skilled professionals and remunerated accordingly. At the same time there was also a greate…
Rites of Passage
This article attempts to make sense of the clinical psychology training experience, as a negotiation of personal and professional identity. It suggests that the training, particularly in the first year, is a rite of passage, in many respects similar to an initiation process. Rites of passage can be seen as processes marking shifts in status and social identity. In the case of training to be a psychologist this change involves the movement from la…
A motley crowd
An English asylum in Africa
An English asylum in Africa
The authors explore the use of space within and outside the buildings of Valkenberg, a Cape Colonial asylum. Valkenberg's design was conditioned by a complex interplay of factors: the way insanity itself was viewed by the colonial government, developments in medical knowledge, social-economic relations in the colonial setting, and practical forms of treatment. The internal structuring of space within the building, and the way the building was sit…
IV. Lost Lives
There is one major reason why the history of the disciplines of psychology and psychiatry deserves our close attention. It is this: the past has shaped every aspect of current practice. As the work of Foucault (1971, 1972) and Rose (1985) demonstrates, there is no simple progression from a benighted past to an enlightened present. Sometimes current practices simply reproduce older ones in new guises; at other times new approaches are a reaction t…
Using Psychodynamic Formulations in South African Clinical Settings
This paper examines the role played by psychodynamic formulations in the training of South African clinical psychologists. It describes formulation practices commonly encountered in training arenas. Misconceptions about the nature and function of psychodynamic formulations are outlined, and the implications of exposing trainees to more than one psychodynamic theory are explored. The informal use of psychodynamic terms in psychiatric talk, and som…
Feminism and psychiatric diagnosis
The black insane in the Cape, 1891-1920
This paper examines the treatment of the black insane in Cape asylums during the period 1891 to 1920. During this time racial segregation and differentiated treatment for the white and black insane was consolidated. The use of racial and cultural difference to justify differences in resources allocated to white and black asylums will be discussed. The use of black patients as an unpaid labour force will be described. Case material will be used to…
Talk about talk
The Construction of Shame in Feminist Reflexive Practice and Its Manifestations in a Research Relationship
Despite the psychically toxic nature of shame, it has historically been under-researched and under-theorized. However, a recent burgeoning of literature has brought an increasing awareness of shame as a pathogenic force. An investigation of this noxious affect is especially pertinent in the context of feminist qualitative research. The authors consider the significant effect of shame on a specific dialogue that unfolded with a female survivor of …
The regulation of British colonial lunatic asylums and the origins of colonial psychiatry, 1860–1864
In this paper I outline a brief period in the history of the British Empire, during which colonial lunatic asylum policy began to be formulated. I begin with a scandal that erupted in Jamaica and suggest that this set in motion processes that led to critical changes in asylum administration. The first of these processes was an audit of hospitals and asylums in the colonies. The results of the audit and the policy that emerged from it marked the b…
Colonizing the insane
In 1875, Thomas Carlyle asked Darwin whether ’there was a possibility of men turning into apes again’. ’ This anxious query reflected widespread fear in late Victorian and Edwardian society of the nervous degeneration of the European race. The very idea of evolution, a steady climb to more and more sophisticated
The professionalization of psychology within the apartheid state 1948–1978
When the National Party came to power in South Africa in 1948 it inherited an ageing colonial psychiatric system underpinned by British-based mental health legislation promulgated in 1916. This situation remained substantially unchanged until the late 1960s, despite the apartheid government's far-reaching attempts to restructure other aspects of the social landscape. The 1966 assassination of South Africa's prime minister by a schizophrenic parli…
The Third Voice
The article examines the activity of writing case-notes. For this purpose, case-notes are broadly defined as textual records of encounters between mental health practitioners and their clients. The primary focus is on psychotherapy notes, written for private use. It suggests that note writing is potentially a lively addition to the dialogue within the therapy room, an essential part of the unique relationship that grows between practitioner and c…
Shrinking
This article traces the changing form and content of histories taken from patients in South African psychiatric settings over a period of a century, and analyses ways in which current history-taking practice continues to be moulded by discursive practices which have their origin in mid-19th century British psychiatry. It examines the implications of clinicians being record-keepers of their own clinical activities, and comments on ways in which pa…
An English asylum in Africa
IV. Lost Lives
There is one major reason why the history of the disciplines of psychology and psychiatry deserves our close attention. It is this: the past has shaped every aspect of current practice. As the work of Foucault (1971, 1972) and Rose (1985) demonstrates, there is no simple progression from a benighted past to an enlightened present. Sometimes current practices simply reproduce older ones in new guises; at other times new approaches are a reaction t…
Asylum case records
This paper raises a series of historiographical issues about the nature of lunatic asylum archives. It addresses one central thread, namely the relationship between the phenomenology of mental illness, and the many kinds of records in which it is reflected. It suggests that there is a fundamental paradox involved in the rational, orderly and coherent representation of mental illness generated by lunatic asylum bureaucracy, and the chaotic multipl…
Using Psychodynamic Formulations in South African Clinical Settings
This paper examines the role played by psychodynamic formulations in the training of South African clinical psychologists. It describes formulation practices commonly encountered in training arenas. Misconceptions about the nature and function of psychodynamic formulations are outlined, and the implications of exposing trainees to more than one psychodynamic theory are explored. The informal use of psychodynamic terms in psychiatric talk, and som…
Talking about Wolf-Whistles
In this article we analyse a conversation between a man and a woman discussing the effect of wolf-whistles on women. In an attempt to reach consensus both participants appear to change their views. By blending elements of discourse and conversation analysis, the article examines the conversational outcome and the effects of gender and power on the discourse positions taken up by the participants. Wolf-whistling is a gendered activity and the impl…
Issues in the analysis of psychotic speech
Rites of Passage
This article attempts to make sense of the clinical psychology training experience, as a negotiation of personal and professional identity. It suggests that the training, particularly in the first year, is a rite of passage, in many respects similar to an initiation process. Rites of passage can be seen as processes marking shifts in status and social identity. In the case of training to be a psychologist this change involves the movement from la…
An English asylum in Africa
The authors explore the use of space within and outside the buildings of Valkenberg, a Cape Colonial asylum. Valkenberg's design was conditioned by a complex interplay of factors: the way insanity itself was viewed by the colonial government, developments in medical knowledge, social-economic relations in the colonial setting, and practical forms of treatment. The internal structuring of space within the building, and the way the building was sit…
Conversation Analysis
Conversation analysis offers valuable insight into how particular goals are achieved in conversation and is therefore a useful methodology to employ in psychological research. The aim of this article is to introduce the theoretical background and practice of conversation analysis. A review of some of the important literature in the area is introduced, after which the authors give some examples of psychological research which has combined conversa…
Harré's Social Being
Harré's Social Being
Talk about talk
Conversation Analysis
Conversation analysis offers valuable insight into how particular goals are achieved in conversation and is therefore a useful methodology to employ in psychological research. The aim of this article is to introduce the theoretical background and practice of conversation analysis. A review of some of the important literature in the area is introduced, after which the authors give some examples of psychological research which has combined conversa…
Issues in the analysis of psychotic speech
Changing diagnoses in Valkenberg Asylum, Cape Colony, 1891-1920
This paper will examine changes made to diagnoses of patients admitted to Valkenberg Asylum, Cape Colony, during the period 1891-1920, in order to illustrate the ambiguous and shifting relationship between psychiatric theory and practice, in this colonial setting. The diagnostic profiles of Valkenberg patients make clear that the distinction between manic-depression and dementia praecox, established in theory by the end of the first decade of thi…
Colonizing the insane
In 1875, Thomas Carlyle asked Darwin whether ’there was a possibility of men turning into apes again’. ’ This anxious query reflected widespread fear in late Victorian and Edwardian society of the nervous degeneration of the European race. The very idea of evolution, a steady climb to more and more sophisticated
Talking about Wolf-Whistles
In this article we analyse a conversation between a man and a woman discussing the effect of wolf-whistles on women. In an attempt to reach consensus both participants appear to change their views. By blending elements of discourse and conversation analysis, the article examines the conversational outcome and the effects of gender and power on the discourse positions taken up by the participants. Wolf-whistling is a gendered activity and the impl…
The black insane in the Cape, 1891-1920
This paper examines the treatment of the black insane in Cape asylums during the period 1891 to 1920. During this time racial segregation and differentiated treatment for the white and black insane was consolidated. The use of racial and cultural difference to justify differences in resources allocated to white and black asylums will be discussed. The use of black patients as an unpaid labour force will be described. Case material will be used to…
Shrinking
This article traces the changing form and content of histories taken from patients in South African psychiatric settings over a period of a century, and analyses ways in which current history-taking practice continues to be moulded by discursive practices which have their origin in mid-19th century British psychiatry. It examines the implications of clinicians being record-keepers of their own clinical activities, and comments on ways in which pa…
Healthwatch
IV. Lost Lives
There is one major reason why the history of the disciplines of psychology and psychiatry deserves our close attention. It is this: the past has shaped every aspect of current practice. As the work of Foucault (1971, 1972) and Rose (1985) demonstrates, there is no simple progression from a benighted past to an enlightened present. Sometimes current practices simply reproduce older ones in new guises; at other times new approaches are a reaction t…
Using Psychodynamic Formulations in South African Clinical Settings
This paper examines the role played by psychodynamic formulations in the training of South African clinical psychologists. It describes formulation practices commonly encountered in training arenas. Misconceptions about the nature and function of psychodynamic formulations are outlined, and the implications of exposing trainees to more than one psychodynamic theory are explored. The informal use of psychodynamic terms in psychiatric talk, and som…
A motley crowd
An English asylum in Africa
An English asylum in Africa
The authors explore the use of space within and outside the buildings of Valkenberg, a Cape Colonial asylum. Valkenberg's design was conditioned by a complex interplay of factors: the way insanity itself was viewed by the colonial government, developments in medical knowledge, social-economic relations in the colonial setting, and practical forms of treatment. The internal structuring of space within the building, and the way the building was sit…
Mineral Wealth and Medical Opportunity
With the increase in population and in colonial revenues after the discovery of diamonds and gold in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, public and private hospitals proliferated, particularly in larger centres such as Cape Town. The numbers of practitioners engaged in public health also increased. Perhaps as important, doctors were now accepted as skilled professionals and remunerated accordingly. At the same time there was also a greate…
Rites of Passage
This article attempts to make sense of the clinical psychology training experience, as a negotiation of personal and professional identity. It suggests that the training, particularly in the first year, is a rite of passage, in many respects similar to an initiation process. Rites of passage can be seen as processes marking shifts in status and social identity. In the case of training to be a psychologist this change involves the movement from la…
Can the Clinical Subject Speak
This paper is concerned with the extent to which the clinical subject, in postcolonial clinical encounters, is able to speak, and be heard, through and beyond the structures of clinical theory and practice. The paper aligns itself theoretically with the project of Subaltern Studies, and particularly the work of Spivak, in her quest ‘to learn to speak to (rather than listen to or speak for) the historically muted subject of the subaltern woman’. I…
The Third Voice
The article examines the activity of writing case-notes. For this purpose, case-notes are broadly defined as textual records of encounters between mental health practitioners and their clients. The primary focus is on psychotherapy notes, written for private use. It suggests that note writing is potentially a lively addition to the dialogue within the therapy room, an essential part of the unique relationship that grows between practitioner and c…
Surfacing Up
Journal Article Surfacing Up: Psychiatry and Social Order in Colonial Zimbabwe, 1908–1968 Get access Lynette Jackson, Surfacing Up: Psychiatry and Social Order in Colonial Zimbabwe, 1908–1968, Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2005. Pp. 248. $24.95. ISBN: 0–8014–8940–7. Sally Swartz Sally Swartz 1University of Cape [email protected] Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic PubMed Google Scholar Social Hi…
The regulation of British colonial lunatic asylums and the origins of colonial psychiatry, 1860–1864
In this paper I outline a brief period in the history of the British Empire, during which colonial lunatic asylum policy began to be formulated. I begin with a scandal that erupted in Jamaica and suggest that this set in motion processes that led to critical changes in asylum administration. The first of these processes was an audit of hospitals and asylums in the colonies. The results of the audit and the policy that emerged from it marked the b…
The professionalization of psychology within the apartheid state 1948–1978
When the National Party came to power in South Africa in 1948 it inherited an ageing colonial psychiatric system underpinned by British-based mental health legislation promulgated in 1916. This situation remained substantially unchanged until the late 1960s, despite the apartheid government's far-reaching attempts to restructure other aspects of the social landscape. The 1966 assassination of South Africa's prime minister by a schizophrenic parli…
Individual Psychotherapy as Treatment of Choice
Individual psychotherapeutic interventions conducted at the University of Cape Town Child Guidance Clinic (CGC) between 2000 and 2009 were investigated quantitatively with a view to offering informed conclusions on the current nature of clinical practice at the Clinic. Considering relevant socio-economic, political and pedagogical contexts of the Clinic's work, some observations are also offered on the applicability of such individual psychothera…
The Construction of Shame in Feminist Reflexive Practice and Its Manifestations in a Research Relationship
Despite the psychically toxic nature of shame, it has historically been under-researched and under-theorized. However, a recent burgeoning of literature has brought an increasing awareness of shame as a pathogenic force. An investigation of this noxious affect is especially pertinent in the context of feminist qualitative research. The authors consider the significant effect of shame on a specific dialogue that unfolded with a female survivor of …
Feminism and psychiatric diagnosis
Psychology (27 works) · Sociology (19 works) · History (15 works) · Historical Psychiatry and Medical Practices (12 works) · Psychiatry (12 works) · Epistemology (10 works) · Political science (10 works) · Psychoanalysis (10 works) · Psychotherapy Techniques and Applications (10 works) · Gender Studies (9 works)