Proposing an Indigenous Nigerian Folktale Therapy as a Counselling Model for Character Training and Behaviour Change among School Children

Abstract

Using the Yoruba race of Nigeria as fulcrum for the study, this paper examines the universality and didactic significance of archetypes in African folklore. The authors contend that Africa folklore, by virtue of its highly moralizing and didactic elements made possible by an embedded commonality of instructive archetypes, offers a lifeline that counsellors and psychologists can use in combating the moral decay in the Nigerian society. Based on this premise the paper goes on to present a counselling model for character training and behaviour change through the use of an indigenous Nigerian Folktale Therapy (I.N.F.T). The model is a response to the needed paradigm shift in the counterproductive traditional punitive method of combating undesirable behaviours that seem to have become rampant currently in Nigerian society. This model could indeed serve as springboard for adaptation in other African settings which are very rich in folklores.