Organizing Committee Member
Dr. Buuma Maisha
Research Centre Co-Director and Program Coordinator, Clinical Professor
Saint Paul University
Canada
Biography
Dr. Buuma Maisha is a Professor and clinical supervisor with the School of Counselling, Psychotherapy, and Spirituality at Saint Paul University in Ottawa, ON, Canada. He is the coordinator of the couple and family counselling program, French stream, and co-director of the new “Centre of Excellence for Research in Psychotherapy and Spiritualityâ€. Dr. Maisha is also an active psychotherapist with individuals, couples and families in Ottawa. He specializes in sexual trauma; helping individuals and families faced with child sexual abuse and sexual assault. His passion is to accompany survivors in their healing journey; as well as prevent recidivism by helping offenders acquire necessary skills towards nonviolent behavior. Since 2014, as a visiting professor at the Université évangélique en Afrique and clinical supervisor at the SOSAME neuropsychiatric hospital in Bukavu, Dr. Maisha actively participates in the training and clinical supervision of therapists working with rape and war related trauma in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Research Area
Dr. Maisha’s research interests include sociocultural norms (social taboos); trauma: sexual violence and culture-driven interpersonal violence; self-image and image of other; and contextualization of psychotherapy in Sub-Saharan Africa. As a result of his ongoing research program, Dr. Maisha has proposed a contextualized therapeutic model for individuals and communities who suffered individual or “community rapeâ€. The context-based model focuses on belief systems, particularly sexual taboos, relational attachment and social interactions for survivors and their families/communities.