Abstract
When I assumed the role of Editor-in-Chief of the South African Journal of Psychology (SAJP) just a few weeks ago, I understood that I was taking on significant responsibility and filling some very big shoes. I am grateful to my predecessors for so ably holding, supporting, and nurturing psychological scholarship in South Africa and beyond. I am especially grateful to Professor Sumaya Laher, my most recent predecessor, who expertly led the journal during a transitional period, generously shared her expertise, and supported me as I stepped into this role. I am grateful to our Associate Editors and the Editorial Board for their dedicated service to the journal. I also look forward to productive engagements with The Psychological Society of South Africa (PsySSA), the SAGE team, and the wider SAJP community of authors and reviewers.
Despite living in a more connected world than ever, loneliness, alienation, and isolation are on the rise. As a global community, we face a multitude of deepening, intersecting crises – a ‘polycrisis’, in the words of Morin and Kern (1993/1999). It is understood that these crises – which include growing economic and other forms of inequality, interpersonal violence, political violence, geopolitical tensions and war, growing pandemics, climate change and the destruction of the natural environment, and declining physical and mental health alongside hyper-capitalist extraction and consumption – all shape and impact each other. At this moment, it is necessary to consider the role psychology has to play in addressing important global challenges and finding relevant solutions for the problems of our time. We understand the importance of critical thinking, transdisciplinary scholarship, and engaged research in making sense of the world around us and addressing the fundamental challenges we are faced with. It is useful to keep asking questions about the role of psychology in these times of deepening crises and to consider how the SAJP might support scholarship that addresses them.
In her final editorial, Professor Laher (2025, p. 469) offered an answer to this question through her reflection on the place of SAJP, as follows:
. . . the SAJP remains committed to nurturing scholarship that is deeply rooted in African knowledges, ethical responsibility and intellectual humility recognising that psychological science gains its greatest relevance when it speaks to the social worlds from which it emerges. This means ongoing attentiveness to histories of exclusion, structural inequality and epistemic marginalisation, alongside a steadfast commitment to social justice, social renewal and human dignity. By championing research and reflective practice that engages community wisdom, interrogates inherited assumptions and advances emancipatory futures, the journal contributes to a discipline that not only studies society but actively participates in its transformation.
I intend to continue along this important trajectory established by the SAJP and to invite scholarship that is transformative, decolonial, socially engaged, and justice-oriented. Foregrounding these aims for our scholarship means that we need to remain mindful of the historical and contemporary harms that have been perpetuated in the name of ‘science’, psychological and otherwise. Careful attention must be paid not only to rigour, novelty, and innovation but also to the symbolic and other harms that might stem from our research and to how it may be taken up in the world beyond the pages of our journal. It is important to consider what our research ‘does’ in the world as well as consider the harms it may perpetuate. In alignment with this, in this issue, Nortjé et al. (2026) remind us of the place of trust and ethical care in the role of professional psychologists. They review ethical misconduct and transgressions committed by registered psychologists, whom we hold to the highest standards of ethical care.
The multidimensional impact and expression of trauma is another arena in which psychological science and practice are fundamental – a thematic area explored in this issue, where both physical and non-physical forms of trauma are explored. In Ismail and Mfene’s (2026) paper, the impact of traumatic brain injury beyond its physical aspects is examined. These include the affective dimensions, such as emotional sensitivity, disrupted sense of self, alienation, grief, stigma, and loss – all lending support for a biopsychosocial model of care and healing.
Moving on to the more affective, psychological, and interpersonal dimensions of trauma, Nkosi et al. (2026) offer rare insight into police detectives’ experiences with families following cases of intimate femicide. They find that this work entails careful yet demanding emotional labour (such as giving death notices to families and managing family expectations around the investigation), involves vicarious trauma and grief, and has important implications for trauma-exposed occupations. Shube and Davids (2026) explore how complex trauma shapes parenting, particularly that of biological mothers, showing increasing protectiveness and attentiveness to the negative effects of trauma. Collectively, these works deepen our understanding of trauma and its contextual groundedness, foregrounding its complex manifestations across family, occupational, and community settings.
Psychological science has historically, in the main, tended to focus on healing from trauma as individualised and isolated, focusing on cognition and coping, whereas decolonial, liberatory, and other forms of critical psychology are foregrounding more diverse, situationally and culturally grounded pathways to healing and reclamation after trauma (Bryant, 2024). Along these lines, Makupula (2026) finds that women’s distress caused by fear and a lack of communication about their children’s well-being during the practice of ulwaluko is countered by communal and other forms of support. Makupula counters patriarchal interpretations of the practice by focusing on women’s experiences during the process. In a further focus on communal healing, Hadebe and Visser (2026) ask what the prioritisation of mental health can look like for young people in marginalised communities. They explore peer-led transformations in mental health through an action research project that shows improvements in aspects of psychological well-being among peer leaders.
Cultural resources and spiritual practices have been recognised as key pathways for healing from trauma. Williams and Sikrweqe (2026) ask what role African traditional healers believe they play in the promotion of well-being. The paper makes a necessary case for incorporating traditional healing practices into a broader mental health framework with an emphasis on inclusion, collaboration, and cultural sensitivity.
The role of the social sciences, which includes psychology, has been recognised as important for examining the intersections of amplified and deepened inequalities alongside emerging and ongoing crises. Part of this story has been the exploration of crises that exacerbate inequality, helping to understand how people live, manage their livelihoods, and cultivate compassion, care, and solidarity (Boonzaier & Mncwango, 2024). In this regard, research on the COVID-19 pandemic remains relevant not only for ‘pandemic preparedness’ but also for illustrating how our current conditions of deepened polycrises have come about and how the pandemic endures. It is also relevant to remedy forgetfulness and offer a different cultural memory of the COVID-19 pandemic, rather than merely as a health emergency (Camporesi et al., 2025).
Four papers in this issue explore the ramifications of the COVID-19 pandemic, including parenting (Botha & Kagee, 2026), learning (Molete & Nel, 2026), and various occupational roles (Everett & Kagee, 2026, Mayisela et al., 2026). Collectively, these works illuminate that while the pandemic was a time of increased stress, amplified mental health challenges, and major difficulties that required rapid adaptations, it also offered affordances that included resilience and flexibility in learning (Molete & Nel, 2026), illumination of coping strategies (Botha & Kagee, 2026), lessons for occupational support for mental health care professionals in private practice (Mayisela et al., 2026), and amplified the multifaceted role that school counsellors play in the educational environment (Everett & Kagee, 2026).
Looking towards the future of the journal, we seek contributions that expand and deepen the transformative scholarship envisioned here – work that advances African knowledges and knowledges from the majority world, foregrounds social justice, and approaches research with ethical care, responsibility, and intellectual humility. We invite submissions that illuminate the multidimensional nature of trauma, expose the mechanisms of violence and inequity across intersecting social locations, address historical and ongoing exclusions, and imagine forms of repair. We welcome bold, dialogic, and multidisciplinary scholarship that refuses silence, challenges inherited assumptions, and helps build the just, sustainable, and equitable futures we collectively strive towards.
