Redressing First Nations historical trauma

Theorizing mechanisms for indigenous culture as mental health treatment

Bibliographic Data

ID2394943
AuthorsJ P Gone (0000-0002-0572-1179, University of Michigan, corresponding author)
Year2013
Volume50
Issue5
Pages683-706
Publication date2013-10-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueTranscultural Psychiatry (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1363-4615 • E-ISSN: 1461-7471
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/1363461513487669
PMID23715822
OpenAlexW2143062704
LanguageEN
Citations received195
References cited63

Indigenous "First Nations" communities have consistently associated their disproportionate rates of psychiatric distress with historical experiences of European colonization. This emphasis on the socio-psychological legacy of colonization within tribal communities has occasioned increasingly widespread consideration of what has been termed historical trauma within First Nations contexts. In contrast to personal experiences of a traumatic nature, the concept of historical trauma calls attention to the complex, collective, cumulative, and intergenerational psychosocial impacts that resulted from the depredations of past colonial subjugation. One oft-cited exemplar of this subjugation-particularly in Canada-is the Indian residential school. Such schools were overtly designed to "kill the Indian and save the man." This was institutionally achieved by sequestering First Nations children from family and community while forbidding participation in Native cultural practices in order to assimilate them into the lower strata of mainstream society. The case of a residential school "survivor" from an indigenous community treatment program on a Manitoba First Nations reserve is presented to illustrate the significance of participation in traditional cultural practices for therapeutic recovery from historical trauma. An indigenous rationale for the postulated efficacy of "culture as treatment" is explored with attention to plausible therapeutic mechanisms that might account for such recovery. To the degree that a return to indigenous tradition might benefit distressed First Nations clients, redressing the socio-psychological ravages of colonization in this manner seems a promising approach worthy of further research investigation

Colonialism · Criminology · Distress · Environmental ethics · Historical trauma · Indigenous · Mainstream · Mental health · Political science · Psychiatry · Psychological trauma · Psychosocial · Psychotherapist · Sociology · Child Abuse and Trauma · Gender Studies · Indigenous Health, Education, and Rights · Law · Medicine · Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Research · Psychology · Ecology