{"id":4645,"date":"2025-12-24T11:21:29","date_gmt":"2025-12-24T09:21:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.escience.ac.za\/?p=4645"},"modified":"2025-12-24T11:21:35","modified_gmt":"2025-12-24T09:21:35","slug":"from-ancestors-to-algorithms-traditional-healers-views-on-mental-illness-in-the-digital-age","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.escience.ac.za\/index.php\/2025\/12\/24\/from-ancestors-to-algorithms-traditional-healers-views-on-mental-illness-in-the-digital-age\/","title":{"rendered":"From Ancestors to Algorithms: Traditional Healers Views on Mental Illness in the Digital Age"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Researcher<\/strong>: Tshilidzi Rathogwa, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg<br><strong>Supervisor<\/strong>: Tasneem Haseem, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg<\/p><p>There is a high prevalence of mental illness in South Africa, with limited access to formal care. Traditional healers serve as a crucial and culturally resonant first line of support for many communities. Online mental health discourse is largely dominated by Western biomedical perspectives, marginalizing indigenous knowledge. A new phenomenon is emerging as traditional healers begin to share their perspectives on digital platforms like YouTube. This study investigates how traditional healers<br>represent mental illness online and how the public engages with these views.<\/p><div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter size-large\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"576\" src=\"https:\/\/www.escience.ac.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/184102_Tshilidzi_Rathogwa_Tshilidzi_Rathogwa_poster_presentation_1646_1207042568-1024x576.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-4646\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.escience.ac.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/184102_Tshilidzi_Rathogwa_Tshilidzi_Rathogwa_poster_presentation_1646_1207042568-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.escience.ac.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/184102_Tshilidzi_Rathogwa_Tshilidzi_Rathogwa_poster_presentation_1646_1207042568-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.escience.ac.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/184102_Tshilidzi_Rathogwa_Tshilidzi_Rathogwa_poster_presentation_1646_1207042568-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.escience.ac.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/184102_Tshilidzi_Rathogwa_Tshilidzi_Rathogwa_poster_presentation_1646_1207042568-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/www.escience.ac.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/184102_Tshilidzi_Rathogwa_Tshilidzi_Rathogwa_poster_presentation_1646_1207042568-2048x1152.jpg 2048w, https:\/\/www.escience.ac.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/184102_Tshilidzi_Rathogwa_Tshilidzi_Rathogwa_poster_presentation_1646_1207042568-600x338.jpg 600w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure><\/div><p>&nbsp;<\/p><p><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Researcher: Tshilidzi Rathogwa, University of the Witwatersrand, JohannesburgSupervisor: Tasneem Haseem, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg There is a high prevalence of mental illness in South Africa, with limited access to formal care. Traditional healers serve as a crucial and culturally resonant first line of support for many<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":4493,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4645","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-capstone-projects"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.escience.ac.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4645","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.escience.ac.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.escience.ac.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escience.ac.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escience.ac.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4645"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.escience.ac.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4645\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4647,"href":"https:\/\/www.escience.ac.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4645\/revisions\/4647"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escience.ac.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4493"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.escience.ac.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escience.ac.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.escience.ac.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}