Aboriginal peoples in Canada have diverse cultures but share common social and political challenges that have contributed to their experiences of health and illness. This collection addresses the origins of mental health and social problems and the emergence of culturally responsive approaches to services and health promotion. Healing Traditions is not a handbook of practice but a resource for thinking critically about current issues in the mental health of indigenous peoples.
The book is divided into four sections: an overview of the mental health of indigenous peoples; origins and representations of social suffering; transformations of identity and community; and traditional healing and mental health services. Cross-cutting themes include: the impact of colonialism, sedentarization, and forced assimilation; the importance of land for indigenous identity and an ecocentric self; notions of space and place as part of the cultural matrix of identity and experience; and processes of healing and spirituality as sources of resilience.
Offering a unique combination of mental health and socio-cultural perspectives, Healing Traditions will be useful to all concerned with the wellbeing of Aboriginal peoples including health professionals, community workers, planners and administrators, social scientists, educators, and students.
Author(s): Laurence J. Kirmayer and Gail Guthrie Valaskakis (Eds.)
Publisher: UBC Press
Year: 2009
Language: English
Pages: 503
City: Vancouver & Toronto
Tags: medical anthropology ethnography psychiatry psychology Aboriginal peoples Indigenous studies
Illustrations
Foreword
Preface
Part 1: The Mental Health of Indigenous Peoples
1 The Mental Health of Aboriginal Peoples in Canada: Transformations of Identity and Community / Laurence J. Kirmayer, Caroline L. Tait, and Cori Simpson
2 Mental Health and the Indigenous Peoples of Australia and New Zealand / Mason Durie, Helen Milroy, and Ernest Hunter
3 Culture and Aboriginality in the Study of Mental Health / James B. Waldram
4 Social Competence and Mental Health among Aboriginal Youth: An Integrative Developmental Perspective / Grace Iarocci, Rhoda Root, and Jacob A. Burack
Part 2: Social Suffering: Origins and Representations
5 A Colonial Double-Bind: Social and Historical Contexts of Innu Mental Health / Colin Samson
6 Placing Violence against First Nations Children: The Use of Space and Place to Construct the (In)credible Violated Subject / Jo-Anne Fiske
7 Narratives of Hope and Despair in Downtown Eastside Vancouver / Dara Culhane
8 Suicide as a Way of Belonging: Causes and Consequences of Cluster Suicides in Aboriginal Communities / Ronald Niezen
9 Disruptions in Nature, Disruptions in Society: Aboriginal Peoples of Canada and the “Making” of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome / Caroline L. Tait
Part 3: Resilience: Transformations of Identity and Community
10 Cultural Continuity as a Moderator of Suicide Risk among Canada’s First Nations / Michael J. Chandler and Christopher E. Lalonde
11 The Origins of Northern Aboriginal Social Pathologies and the Quebec Cree Healing Movement / Adrian Tanner
12 Toward a Recuperation of Souls and Bodies: Community Healing and the Complex Interplay of Faith and History / Naomi Adelson
13 Locating the Ecocentric Self: Inuit Concepts of Mental Health and Illness / Laurence J. Kirmayer, Christopher Fletcher, and Robert Watt
14 Community Wellness and Social Action in the Canadian Arctic: Collective Agency as Subjective Well-Being / Michael J. Kral and Lori Idlout
Part 4: Healing and Mental Health Services
15 Aboriginal Approaches to Counselling / Rod McCormick
16 Respecting the Medicines: Narrating an Aboriginal Identity / Gregory M. Brass
17 A Jurisdictional Tapestry and a Patchwork Quilt of Care: Aboriginal Health and Social Services in Montreal / Mary Ellen Macdonald
18 Six Nations Mental Health Services: A Model of Care for Aboriginal Communities / Cornelia Wieman
19 Encountering Professional Psychology: Re-Envisioning Mental Health Services for Native North America / Joseph P. Gone
20 Conclusion: Healing / Invention / Tradition / Laurence J. Kirmayer, Gregory M. Brass, and Gail Guthrie Valaskakis
Contributors
Index
