Indigenous Cultures And Mental Health Counselling

North America’s Indigenous population is a vulnerable group, with specific psychological and healing needs that are not widely met in the mental health care system. Indigenous peoples face certain historical, cultural-linguistic and socioeconomic barriers to mental health care access that government, health care organizations and social agencies must work to overcome. This volume examines ways Indigenous healing practices can complement Western psychological service to meet the needs of Indigenous peoples through traditional cultural concepts. Bringing together leading experts in the fields of Aboriginal mental health and psychology, it provides data and models of Indigenous cultural practices in psychology that are successful with Indigenous peoples. It considers Indigenous epistemologies in applied psychology and research methodology, and informs government policy on mental health service for these populations.

North America’s Indigenous population is a vulnerable group, with specific psychological and healing needs that are not widely met in the mental health care system. Indigenous peoples face certain historical, cultural-linguistic and socioeconomic barriers to mental health care access that government, health care organizations and social agencies must work to overcome. This volume examines ways Indigenous healing practices can complement Western psychological service to meet the needs of Indigenous peoples through traditional cultural concepts. Bringing together leading experts in the fields of Aboriginal mental health and psychology, it provides data and models of Indigenous cultural practices in psychology that are successful with Indigenous peoples. It considers Indigenous epistemologies in applied psychology and research methodology, and informs government policy on mental health service for these populations.

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. Cross-cutting themes include: the impact of colonialism, sedentarization, and forced assimilation; the importance of land for indigenous identity and an ecocentric self; and processes of healing and spirituality as sources of resilience.

This book examines a collaboration between traditional Māori healing and clinical psychiatry. Comprised of transcribed interviews and detailed meditations on practice, it demonstrates how bicultural partnership frameworks can augment mental health treatment by balancing local imperatives with sound and careful psychiatric care. In the first chapter, Māori healer Wiremu NiaNia outlines the key concepts that underpin his worldview and work. He then discusses the social, historical, and cultural context of his relationship with Allister Bush, a child and adolescent psychiatrist. The main body of the book comprises chapters that each recount the story of one young person and their family’s experience of Māori healing from three or more points of view: those of the psychiatrist, the Māori healer and the young person and other family members who participated in and experienced the healing. With a foreword by Sir Mason Durie, this book is essential reading for psychologists, social workers, nurses, therapists, psychiatrists, and students interested in bicultural studies.

Indigenous Counseling is based in universal principals/truths that promote a way to think about how to live in the world and with one another that extends beyond the scope of Western European thought. Individual health and wellness is intricately interwoven into the relationships that we establish on multiple levels in our lives, those that we establish with ourselves, with others, and with the external environments with which we live. From an Indigenous perspective, health and wellness in our individual lives, families, community and world, is the result of ancient knowledge that produces action in a way that is beneficial to all beings on the planet for generations to come. The current social and political record of our country now clearly reveals the result of a paradigm that has outlived its time. No longer can we ignore the core values of our fields of study; we must take a deeper look into the academic endeavors that inform the way we pass our cultures’ values on to successive generations. While it has taken Western Science decades to catch up to Indigenous/Native Science, we now have ample scientific evidence to support claims of interconnectedness on multiple levels of individual and collective health.

This book brings together Indigenous and allied experts addressing mental health among Indigenous peoples across the traditional territories commonly known as the Americas (e.g. Canada, US, Caribbean Islands, Mexico, Bolivia, Venezuela, Ecuador and Brazil), Asia (e.g. China, Korea, Japan, Taiwan and Indonesia), Africa (e.g. South Africa, Central and West Africa) and Oceania (New Guinea and Australia) to exchange knowledge, perspectives and methods for mental health research and service delivery. Around the world, Indigenous peoples have experienced marginalization, rapid culture change and absorption into a global economy with little regard for their needs or autonomy. This cultural discontinuity has been linked to high rates of depression, substance abuse, suicide, and violence in many communities, with the most dramatic impact on youth. Nevertheless, Indigenous knowledge, tradition and practice have remained central to wellbeing, resilience and mental health in these populations. Such is the focus of this book.

"This groundbreaking book provides guidance to counselors working with Native Peoples and other vulnerable populations. Including an important new chapter devoted to working with veterans, the second edition presents case materials that illustrate effective intervention strategies for prevalent problems, including substance abuse, intergenerational trauma, and internalized oppression"--

Connecting modern psychology to its Indigenous roots to enhance the healing process and psychology itself • Shares the healing wisdom of Indigenous people the author has worked with, including the Ju/’hoansi of the Kalahari Desert, the Fijians of the South Pacific, Sicangu Lakota people, and Cree and Anishnabe First Nations people • Explains how Indigenous perspectives can help create a more effective model of best practices in psychology • Explores the vital role of spirituality in the practice of psychology and the shift of emphasis that occurs when one understands that all beings are interconnected Wherever the first inhabitants of the world gathered together, they engaged in the human concerns of community building, interpersonal relations, and spiritual understanding. As such these earliest people became our “first psychologists.” Their wisdom lives on through the teachings of contemporary Indigenous elders and healers, offering unique insights and practices to help us revision the self-limiting approaches of modern psychology and enhance the processes of healing and social justice. Reconnecting psychology to its ancient roots, Richard Katz, Ph.D., sensitively shares the healing wisdom of Indigenous peoples he has worked with, including the Ju/’hoansi of the Kalahari Desert, Fijians native to the Fiji Islands, Lakota people of the Rosebud Reservation, and Cree and Anishnabe First Nations people from Saskatchewan. Through stories about the profoundly spiritual ceremonies and everyday practices he engaged in, he seeks to fulfill the responsibility he was given: build a foundation of reciprocity so Indigenous teachings can create a path toward healing psychology. Also drawing on his experience as a Harvard-trained psychologist, the author reveals how modern psychological approaches focus too heavily on labels and categories and fail to recognize the benefits of enhanced states of consciousness. Exploring the vital role of spirituality in the practice of psychology, Katz explains how the Indigenous approach offers a way to understand challenges and opportunities, from inside lived truths, and treat mental illness at its source. Acknowledging the diversity of Indigenous approaches, he shows how Indigenous perspectives can help create a more effective model of best practices in psychology as well as guide us to a more holistic existence where we can once again assume full responsibility in the creation of our lives.