title: Understanding traditional African healing.
abstract: Traditional African healing has been in existence for many centuries yet many people still seem not to understand how it relates to God and religion/spirituality. Some people seem to believe that traditional healers worship the ancestors and not God. It is therefore the aim of this paper to clarify this relationship by discussing a chain of communication between the worshipers and the Almighty God. Other aspects of traditional healing namely types of traditional healers, training of traditional healers as well as the role of traditional healers in their communities are discussed. In conclusion, the services of traditional healers go far beyond the uses of herbs for physical illnesses. Traditional healers serve many roles which include but not limited to custodians of the traditional African religion and customs, educators about culture, counselors, social workers and psychologists.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, School of Health Sciences, Monash South Africa, P.O. Box X60, Ruimsig, 1725, Republic of South Africa; maboe.mokgobi@monash.edu.
authors.forename: M G
authors.initials: MG
authors.lastname: Mokgobi
keywords: African cosmology; African religion/spirituality; traditional African healing; traditional healers