Anthropologists explore cultural dynamics of mental health in native North America:

Sep 23 2008

In September's special issue of Ethos-the Journal of the Society for Psychological Anthropology-three investigators explore mental health discourses and practices in three diverse Native North American communities, illuminating how clinical and Western ideas of medicine and healing could be reconsidered.

The articles compare cultural differences between Navajo peyote rites and a prototypical Western psychotherapy session, examine the causes of "stress" among Whapmagoostui Cree women, and illuminate the weaknesses of universalistic treatment programs--such as the Alcoholics Anonymous 12 Step Plan--in tackling substance abuse in Native North American communities. Scholarly commentaries by Audra Simpson and Joseph E. Trimble follow the main articles.

Collectively, the articles and critical assessment in the introduction by Joseph P. Gone challenge the dominance of Western treatment practices and ask that policymakers and mental health professionals hear the resounding message being voiced in many Native communities:

"Our culture is our treatment."

Articles include:

From Montana, "Sobriety and its Cultural Politics: An Ethnographer's Perspective on "Culturally Appropriate" Addiction Services in Native North America," by Erica Prussing

Prussing, a medical anthropologist, presents ethnographic findings from a long-term study of a federally funded, tribally controlled substance abuse treatment center on a northern Plains Indian reservation in Southeastern Montana. Despite an international trend towards greater community control of mental health programs, Prussing's findings reveal that many Native drug and alcohol addiction programs are shaped by simplistic and essentialized understandings of Native "culture" and ongoing power hierarchies that have lead to programmatic stagnation and tacit forms of cultural proselytization embedded within treatment programs.

From the Navajo Nation, "Clinical Paradigm Clashes: Ethnocentric and Political Barriers to Native American Efforts at Self-Healing," by Joseph D. Calabrese

Calabrese, a clinical psychologist with anthropological training, describes the clash between Euro-American and Navajo Peyotist approaches to psychotherapeutic intervention. As he investigates the healing ceremonies of the Native American Church among contemporary Navajos, he reveals the community's rich tradition of therapy through communal intervention, dramatic ritual ordeals and altered states of consciousness. In doing so, he challenges the efficacy of the Western-based approach to psychotherapy and encourages clinicians and policymakers to consider the value of traditional approaches to self-healing in Navajo communities.

From Quebec, "Discourses of Stress, Social Inequities, and the Everyday Worlds of First Nations Women in a Remote Northern Canadian Community," by Naomi Adelson

Adelson, a medical anthropologist, was chartered by the Whapmagoostui Band Council to investigate why women in the Whapmagoostui Cree community in northern Quebec were experiencing high levels of stress in their daily lives. In the resulting article, Adelson reveals the complex interplay that occurred between the Native women, the Anglican church and community elders-and the health implications for the women that ensued.

The special section of Ethos, "Cultural Politics of Mental Health in Native North America" will be available online at AnthroSource and on Blackwell Synergy in September 2008. To view the issue, go to http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/118902560/home or visit Blackwell Synergy at www.blackwellpublishing.com.

AnthroSource is available free to first nations and historically black colleges and universities