Jean Messingue, SJ

Institut de Théologie de la Compagnie de Jésus
Abidjan, Ivory Coast

Phone: (+225) 59 36 21 09 // (+1) 857 505 7758
Email: jmessingue@yahoo.fr

Jean Messingué is a Jesuit priest and a mental health professional. He is a permanent faculty member at the Jesuit Institute of Theology in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, as a pastoral counselor. Currently he is also a Taos PhD student at Vrije University of Brussels.

As Practitioner-Researcher, Messingué is developing training programs (certificates and continuing formation) in Abidjan. The goal is to promote a collaborative construction of local knowledges and expertise through a critical appreciative dialogue for the practitioners in the specific context of Africa and to lead mutually empowering and transforming inquiries, particularly with non-academically trained counselors, including the clergy, who are the main providers and the most consulted for relational, psychological, and spiritual services. 

In his practice, as well as in his research, Messingué is particularly interested in exploring and thickening how people and communities could better resist and negotiate the dominant cultural discourses and fulfill meaning in their lives. Currently, he is carrying out a Critical Appreciative Inquiry, from narrative and relational constructionist perspectives, to co-create the best counseling process possible with women who reclaim their lives from the oppressive discourses of “Being an African Single Woman”.