Need therapy? In W. Africa, find a hairdresser
LOMÉ, Togo — Joseline de Lima was wandering the dusty alleys of her working-class neighborhood in the capital of Togo one day last year when a disturbing thought crossed her mind: Who would take care of her two boys if her depression worsened and she were no longer around to look after them?
De Lima, a single mother who was grieving the recent death of her brother and had lost her job at a bakery, knew she needed help. But therapy was out of the question. “Too formal and expensive,” she recalled thinking.
Help came instead from an unexpected counselor: de Lima’s hairdresser, who had noticed her erratic walks in the neighborhood and provided a safe space to share her struggles amid the curly wigs hanging from colorful shelves and the bright neon lights of her small salon in Lomé.
The hairdresser, Tele da Silveira, is one of about 150 women who have received mental health training in West and Central African cities from a nonprofit trying to fill a critical gap: providing mental health care in one of the world’s poorest regions — where counseling remains barely accessible, let alone accepted.
Da Silveira began with gentle questions and encouraging words as she braided or blowdried de Lima’s salt-and-pepper hair. More careful listening followed, then the suggestions for new braiding styles and walks to a nearby lagoon, which de Lima described as “lifesaving therapy.”
“People need attention in this world,” da Silveira said. “They need to talk.”
Togo and many other African countries face an urgent need for more and better mental health therapy: The World Health Organization classifies its Africa region as the one with the highest suicide rate in the world and some of the lowest public expenditures on mental health. The region has an average of 1.6 mental health workers per 100,000 people, while the global median is 13, according to the WHO.
Mental health crises are exacerbated by violent conflicts in countries like Sudan, Somalia, Congo, Ethiopia and in the Sahel region; by rising drug use in many large cities; and by widespread youth unemployment, displacement from the extreme effects of climate change and soaring inflation.
In Togo, a tiny coastal nation on the Gulf of Guinea, there is little awareness of mental health therapy, whether in the seaside capital or its villages in the hilly north. The country has only five psychiatrists for more than 8 million people.