PAN AFRICAN NETWORK

The recent EABCT conference in Marrakech was a great opportunity to meet colleagues from Europe and the rest of the world and further our thinking about CBT across international settings.  This was the first time EABCT had held its conference in Africa and the first time for many clinicians, academics and researchers interested in CBT in Africa to come together.  There were several symposia, workshops and panel discussions concerning culturally sensitive and relevant CBT for populations in Africa.

A brief meeting was held bringing together colleagues with this interest and I am writing to you on behalf of the people who attended.  Whilst many CBT associations exist in different countries across the world, we realised we know little of the status of CBT in many African countries and we know there is no umbrella association like EABCT helping to support and develop CBT in that continent. In the discussion we decided to make a first step in developing this by forming a Pan African CBT Network.  We have two initial goals:

  • To identify and make links with any colleagues with an interest in cognitive-behavioural therapies in countries in Africa
  • To have an inaugural PACBT meeting at the 2014 EABCT conference in The Hague

We have set up a group on the Linked In website as part of the first goal.  However, we need as much assistance as possible to find and communicate with colleagues in Africa or those who have links to African countries.  We are therefore sending out this letter to all the EABCT member associations to ask you to discuss this new initiative with your members.  Specifically, we would like you to communicate this request to your members so we can find out who has a connection with Africa and may be interested in joining us in the PACBT network.  If you know of African people or organisations interested in joining the PACBT, please let us know.

Our contact people are Lydia Stone at lydia.stone@hounslow.gov.uk or Jamal Chiboub at chiboubjamal@yahoo.fr who are taking this initiative forward. Or people can go directly to the PACBT network on Linked In. Any questions or points of discussion are very much welcome.

We believe this is an exciting new step in the further development of CBT and look forward to hearing from you and your members.

Yours faithfully,
Rod Holland
President of EABCT