SAPA's Commitment to Ethical Standards and Non-Discrimination

The members of SAPA, as well as its Trainees and administrative staff, are expected to uphold the highest standards of ethical conduct in their professional practices and personal lives. SAPA has adopted a Code of Ethics, which broadly follows the Ethical Principles of the IPA. Members and Trainees are required to adhere to this Code, and disciplinary procedures are followed in the event of failures to do so.  

Whenever there is ambiguity in the interpretation of this Code, SAPA members are expected to consult with senior colleagues for advice and guidance. The Code is an evolving set of ethical principles and practices that will develop in tandem with its application. 

SAPA is committed to non-discrimination with respect to gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, age and socioeconomic class, in all aspects of its educational and professional functioning, including in the selection and training of individuals wishing to become psychoanalysts. Additionally, in the context of South Africa's history of apartheid, SAPA supports the principle of affirmative action with regard to previously disadvantaged individuals and communities, and encourages its members to do likewise in their professional activities.

Dominated by centuries of oppression and exploitation of people by using power and superiority based on perceived racial differences, the negative effects of this system are still prevalent today including gross social inequality, grinding poverty, family dislocations through migrant labour and several more examples of suffering and trauma decades after the abolishment of Apartheid. It is the mission of SAPI/SAPA by promoting psychoanalysis in South Africa to contribute towards the transformation of this iniquitous system. 

SAPA/SAPI would therefore caution the use of ‘race’ as a categorisation of peoples identities without critical considerations of its discredited application of classification during Apartheid. As South African psychoanalytic psychotherapists and psychoanalysts we accept that the negative effects of institutionalised racism will probably take decades more to transform, however, our idea of one race, the human race should be seen as both a contribution towards redress of the damage and a unifying concept for nation building. We are against the gratuitous use of race as a concept to classify people and committed to the promotion of basic human rights and dignity for all as enshrined in the South African constitution.