St Lucia is in the Windward Island group of the Lesser Antilles and is just to the north east of Barbados.
Some interesting statistics: Size - 238 sq. miles, 27 miles by 14
Population (2005) - 164,791
Live births (2004) - 2.332
Illegitmate births - 2,035
Teen births (2004) - 452
Infant mortality - 19.4% (other than stillbirths)
The biggest health problem here is diabetes - St Lucia is currently the 'diabetes capital' of the world - and the spread of HIV Aids. There are now programmes in place to tackle both of these. It is generally accepted that St Lucian men will have ( before and after marriage) more than one sexual partner at a time and a new intitiative has just (December 2007) been launched to involve men further in preventing the spread of HIV infection.
The most common social problems are alcoholism and violence. Altercations are often 'settled' by shootings, stabbings or 'choppings' with a cutlass (machete). Sections of the population live in ghettos with substandard housing, no running water or sewage and infested with rats.
The Government does now provide some counselling in schools and also as part of the HIV Aids programme but there is very little private counselling here. I think this is partly because few people can afford it and partly because problems are kept within the family.
There is a new Counselling service in the north of the island that offers only CBT. There is one psychotherapist on the other side of the island from where I live. He offers psychotherapy, long and short term counselling and couples counselling.
Local educational events:
Most common communication tools used in the country:
Telephone, predominantly cell phones. Use of the internet is rising rapidly, to the extent that it can be quite difficult to get online after 3pm and at weekends, because the ISP's have not expanded provision in line with their advertising!
Level of access for the general population:
Negligible but slowly improving. Poverty a barrier in most cases. Mainly used by the young.
Level and examples of online mental health services/research/education/supervision:
None, apart from my own practice
Legal/regulatory issues:
To be employed as a counsellor here it is necessary to have a degree. As an Englishwoman this is a source of particular annoyance. Very few British counsellors of my age (including me) have a degree as, although British counselling training is at postgraduate level, it has never been necessary to have a first degree in order to access it.
St Lucia was a British colony before it was granted independence. Before that, it was fought over between the English and French with ownership passing between the two countries. St Lucia has never been an American colony and I do not understand why it has followed the US on this.
Insurance/payment options:
No PI insurance available here. Before I moved here I asked a local counsellor where she obtained her insurance and she was as surprised by my question as I was to learn that she had never considered taking this out. I obtain my own PI insurance from a UK company and am paying roughly 100 times what I would be paying if I lived in the UK. This is the biggest outgoing for my practice.
Languages spoken:
The official language is English and most people speak this as well as the native patois, or Kweyol, which is basically a mixture of African and French.
Relevant cultural issues:
It is not that long, in the history of the human race, since slavery was abolished here and the results of this can, in my opinion, be seen (projected down through the generations) in the ease with which the men turn to violence to solve their disputes, the way in which they treat women (and the women accept it) and the difficulty many people have in taking responsibility for their own lives.
The birth of a child is usually (not always) welcome, whatever the situation into which it is born. Men still seem to prove their virility by fathering children and several young men whom I know personally have children by 3 or 4 different women. They see no shame in this but often find it difficult to provide financial support.
Decent housing is expensive and usually out of reach of young men at the age at which they begin fathering children, so it is quite common for women to have at least one child whilst still living in the parental home and apart from the child's father. Younger women are becoming more aware that having a child will not guarantee them either a life partner or financial security, which partly explains the difference between the illegitimate birth rate and the teenage birth rate.
Most people think that homosexuality is illegal here although, in fact it is not. Sodomy is. There is a general hatred and digust felt towards gay men, largely stemming from the attitudes of the churches.
Resources in the field of online mental health:
None indigenous to St Lucia - except my own practice!
