HG practitioner participates in global congress

PHOTO: Felicity speaks as, from l-r, Dr Abdel Nasser Omar, Her Excellency Nabila Makram, Dr Wadih Maalouf and Dr Jacquelyn Berry listen on.

HG practitioner Felicity Jaffrey, who lives and works in Egypt, received the extraordinary honour of being invited to speak at Egypt’s hugely prestigious Global Congress on Population, Health and Human Development (PHDC24) in Cairo in October. The PHDC provides “a global platform for stakeholders to discuss new dynamics for population, health and human development hot topics, challenges [and] opportunities, and propose action plans and road maps”. 

The congress, which is held under the auspices of the President of Egypt, H.E. Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, was hosted by its Ministry of Health and Population and the Fahim Foundation, a highly regarded mental health organisation founded by a former Minister of Health, with the aim of improving understanding of and access to mental health care for the general population. Congress partners include United Nations Egypt, WHO, Unicef, Unesco, the World Food Programme and more.

Felicity says, “My involvement came about because a colleague of mine from Nine Psychology, the multi-disciplinary clinic where I practice in Cairo, was asked to recommend a therapist experienced in working cross culturally and with addictions. I have spent the majority of the last 25 years living in a multi-cultural community in Egypt and have much experience working with people from many different cultures and countries, and so my name was put forward to the Fahim Foundation who interviewed me and then invited me to participate. 

“It was a little daunting at first but, as I thought about it, knowing that the HG approach has so much to offer the world, I felt excited at the opportunity to spread the word about HG.” 

Felicity took part in a panel which discussed the rise in substance addiction and whether culture and socioeconomic issues are increasing vulnerability and challenging treatment. The moderator of the panel, Dr Wadih Maalouf, is also the lead on Champs, a UN global initiative aimed at drug prevention in young people, which was also launched at the congress. To be rolled out first in Egypt, Champs will also be launched in Brazil, Nigeria and several other countries. One of Champs’ aims is to map effective existing services and streamline efforts to “shape the developmental trajectories of 10,000,000 children in ten low and middle income countries in five years, in its first wave of implementation”. Felicity seized this opportunity to introduce HG, of which more later.

On the panel with Felicity were Her Excellency Nabila Makram, former Minister of Health and founder and chair of the Fahim Foundation, who is also vice president of the World Federation for Mental Health for the Eastern Mediterranean Region and representative, in that capacity, to government and non-governmental organisations, including the UN – she spoke about the role of healthy families in preventing addictions; Dr Abdel Nasser Omar, Professor of Psychiatry at Ain Shams University, who pointed out the cultural differences in perspectives on cannabis use and drinking – the former being normalised and the latter shameful in Egypt, with the reverse the case in many European countries; and cognitive scientist Dr Jacquelyn Berry, Assistant Professor of Psychology at the American University in Cairo, who talked about dopamine and addiction and how addictions develop when people live meaningless lives. 

This segued beautifully into Felicity’s contribution, in which she introduced the human givens and the universality of essential emotional needs, including meaning and purpose, and drew on her extensive experience of cross-cultural differences – pointing out that emotional needs remain a constant even within different cultural frameworks. 

The 'three world views' model 

She also explained the ‘three world views’ model, which states that the main bases from which different cultures operate are, variously, Honour and Shame, Innocence and Guilt and Power and Fear, which shed light on many cross-cultural misunderstandings, and this resonated well with the audience. She was the only panellist to give a case history, a vivid one about a Westernised client from an honour/shame culture who had fallen into addiction because of different cross-cultural misconnections between her and her mother and whom Felicity was able to help through the HG RIGAAR model. 

“Feedback indicated that this really connected me with the audience and brought my contribution alive,” says Felicity. “I referenced human givens throughout and, as the Minister of Health and Population, His Excellency Khaled Abdel Ghaffar, was attending the panel, I am pretty confident that the Egyptian government officially knows of our existence now!” 

Felicity took the opportunity to suggest to Dr Wadih Maalouf, the lead on Champs, that the HG set of organising principles and practices would fit well with its vision. He invited her to talk further with his colleague Mirna Bouhabib, the deputy regional representative for the United Nations Office on Drugs and Alcohol, who is highly involved in Champs. As a result of this, she reports, conversations are now beginning regarding possible opportunities both to consult with the UN and to train Fahim Foundation psychologists in cross-cultural understanding and the HG approach

Our huge thanks and congratulations to Felicity for the enormous amount of effort and enthusiasm she put into this exhilarating and successful event.