Friday Morning Seminar in Culture, Psychiatry and Global Mental Health
Date and Time
American Indian Traditional Healing: Expressions of Alter-Native Psy-ence
Speaker
- Joseph P. Gone, Professor of Anthropology and of Global Health and Social Medicine, Harvard University; Faculty Director, Harvard University Native American Program.
Moderator
- Byron Good, Faculty Associate. Professor of Medical Anthropology, Department of Global Health and Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School; Professor, Social Anthropology Program, Department of Anthropology, Harvard University.
Contact
Francesco Rolando
francesco.rolando@g.harvard.edu
Summary
American Indian communities exhibit inequities in psychological distress, disability, and dis-order. Despite such disparities, mental health researchers and professionals in these settings report that community advocates, gatekeepers, and other tribal members express concerns about the cultural relevance of mainstream professional treatments. Instead, in the wake of a brutal Euro-American colonization, many American Indians today assert that “our culture is our treatment.” As a result, there remains widespread interest in integrating Indigenous traditional therapeutic approaches into mental health and substance abuse treatment throughout Indian Country. A necessary first step toward harnessing traditional healing in treatment programs is broader familiarity with these approaches, which themselves have changed over time. In this presentation I will review and describe documented instances of Indigenous traditional healing that I have encountered in various projects throughout my career as a research psychologist. Taking care to share only that knowledge which has been shared with me for these purposes, I will reflect on the prospects of Indigenous traditional therapeutic practices to reflect and express an alter-Native psy-ence of mental health.