For Final - Mental Health & Two-Spirited Peoples

Question 1

Indigenous perspectives means mental health is broadly viewed through a holistic lens that takes into consideration the well-being of what?

Answer 1

spirit, body, emotions, and the mind.

Question 2

Indigenous Worldviews:

t/f - Mental health includes knowing one’s purpose for being here and connecting this to a sense of belonging to a culture or community

Answer 2

true

Question 3

t/f - Indigenous helpers do not necessarily use an individual appointment model within an office, but are more likely to meet with people where they are, such as in their homes, in schools, or at gatherings. They may also include family and community members in the discussions

Answer 3

true

Question 4

Another important aspect of providing mental health services to Indigenous Peoples is the telling of stories. Why?

Answer 4

• Storytelling is a way to pass on teachings and cultures
• is also significant in the healing of mental imbalances in the context of holistic understandings, which include all aspects of a person and their interconnectedness with everyone and everything around them

*suffering [exists] within the context of a story, for all we are is story

***Stories then, and Indigenous healing methods generally, are strengths that reframe “problems” and “symptoms” into adaptations.

Question 5

t/f - The term “historical trauma,” which emerged in the mid-1990s is explained as psychological, emotional, and spiritual wounding over the lifespan and across generations, resulting in group trauma leading to high rates of mental health and social challenges for Indigenous Peoples

Answer 5

true

Question 6

Baskin doesn’t favour the term “intergenerational” WHY?

Answer 6

as it seems to place responsibility on a generation, or group of parents, for “passing on” their trauma to their children, who then grow up to do the same with their children.

*Although better, “historical” trauma, which distances itself from focusing on parents, may not take into account that colonization has not ended and people are experiencing such trauma every day.

Question 7

t/f - focusing on only colonization and collective trauma may overshadow the all too real stress and losses that an individual and family is going through

Answer 7

true

Question 8

t/f - It is clear from studies in other populations and cultures that the effects of trauma can be transmitted from parents to their offspring.

What are the effects?

Answer 8

true

Vulnerability to PTSD (Yehuda et al., 2001)
General psychological distress (Kellerman, 2001)
Difficulties in coping with stressful experiences (Baider et al., 2000)
Poor attachment styles (Lyons-Ruth et al., 2005)

Question 9

Which group was studied for historical trauma?

Answer 9

– Jewish holocaust survivors after world war II

Question 10

There are still other potential effects on the mental health of Indigenous peoples that have not been evaluated, such as
 Loss of culture
 Loss of languages
 Loss of identity

t/f?

Answer 10

true

One effect that hasn’t been studied is in terms of cultural pride and kingship with other Indigenous people.

For internment camps for Japanese – the people tended to minimize their Japanese heritage and encourage their family to assimilate into Canadian culture

Question 11

Impacts of Historical Trauma - Family:

t/f - Indigenous scholars have suggested that historical trauma may play a role in Indigenous family violence

Answer 11

true

 Residential schools deprived generations of Indigenous peoples of traditional parental role models

Not only did this interrupt the intergenerational transmission of healthy child-rearing practices but also instilled new, negative behaviors

Question 12

Factors Influencing the Severity of Historical Trauma:

Several factors have been shown to increase the likelihood of trauma for offspring, including

Having two traumatized parents
Female gender in either parent or child
Silence about experiences

Answer 12

true

Question 13

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is characterized by?
Anxiety
Emotional numbness
Intensive and intrusive recollections of the event
Difficulty concentrating
Intense sense of detachment from their surroundings

Answer 13

yes

Hard to tease apart PTSD and historical trauma

Question 14

PTSD vs. RSS (Residential School Syndrome):

While related to posttraumatic stress disorder, residential school syndrome is characterized by:

An “intense silence and a great fear of feeling”
Significant cultural impact
Persistent tendency to abuse alcohol or other drugs that is particularly associated with violent outbursts of anger
Deficient parenting skills

Answer 14

true

RSS could be “othering” and is very similar to PTSD. RSS pathologizes residential school survivors and stigmatizes a whole group of people

Question 15

Common Responses to Indigenous Mental Health Crises:

Therapists from nearby urban centres are often sent into remote Anishinaabeg communities en masse for a brief time - why is this a problem

Answer 15

The issue is that these counsellors have no connection to the community and don’t know the culture / history there – short sighted plan to help

Question 16

Common Responses to Indigenous Mental Health Crises:

t/f - For Indigenous mothers, the fear of having their children apprehended by child welfare far outweighs their need for help for their mental health challenges.

t/f - Another common concern expressed by Indigenous women was how mental health workers linked their challenges to substance misuse even though they did not consume alcohol or drugs or had not had a drink in years.

Answer 16

true

Question 17

t/f - Internalized racism and sexism, and the normalization of violence in residential schools have contributed to disproportionately high rates of violence against women within Indigenous communities

Answer 17

true

Question 18

is it mainstream mental health treatment or Indigenous treatment that tend to focus on individuation, self-actualization, and independence, which are not part of Indigenous worldviews so the services may be underused due to different understandings.

Answer 18

mainstream mental health treatment

Question 19

Western society has no way of defining mental health challenges other than through its perceived ideas of what is “normal.” why is this a problem?

Answer 19

Norms, beliefs, and ways of defining such challenges that do not conform to these ideas are then often viewed as problematic for mainstream psychiatry and psychology

Question 20

Research with Indigenous women has identified a number of barriers they have in accessing mainstream mental health services. The most common ones identified are:
* lack of confidentiality and trust;
* fear of losing their children;
* lack of child care within programming;
* cookie-cutter approaches;
* lack of training of mental health workers;
* waiting lists;
* lack of validation;
* problems with medication;
* stigma; and
* racism

Answer 20

true

Question 21

t/f - In Western mental health services, an assessment leads to a diagnosis, which typically includes a label – which can be restrictive, rather than fluid and descriptive

Answer 21

true

Assessment tools can be hindering if they are viewed as intrusive to building a helping relationship or taking on stereotypical assumptions about Indigenous Peoples.

It’s important to think about language - the use of words such as “pathology,” “dysfunction,” “symptoms,” and “disorder” can be stigmatizing

Question 22

Indigenous Mental Health Initiatives:

A self-determination (versus state-determination) approach to addressing mental health involves

Embracing and expanding localized, Indigenous nation-based understandings of distress, wellness, and healing (not pan-Indian)

Mental health initiatives that are community-driven, community-led, and that support healthy Indigenous communities

Answer 22

true

Question 23

t/f - All contemporary psychotherapy theories rest upon certain basic philosophic assumptions about human behaviour that largely influence the interventions of the therapy model

Answer 23

true

The assumptions inherent in almost all psychotherapy models are founded on Western worldviews

Question 24

t/f - empirically validated treatments are relatively similar in regard to client outcomes

Answer 24

true

Bottom of barrel in no treatment, middle is placebo (i.e. one group gets CBT and one group gets like supportive talk), empirically valuated = but there was no difference between the empirically treatment (Do-Do bird effect – they all win so they all get prices)

Question 25

Universal Helping Models:
From the teacher’s PhD thesis
All helping models, professional or otherwise, have 3 integral components:
1 - An etiological understanding of distress
2 - An understanding of wellness and well-being
3 - An understanding of what the helper and helpee must do to in order for the helpee to move from a state of distress to a state of wellness (“healing component”)

Answer 25

1 - every way of helping has an idea of where problems come from

2– all helping models have an ideal about that state you want to be at

Question 26

What is the term that is generally understood as reflecting an Indigenous person who identifies on a gender continuum outside European/Western binaries or has a balance of both masculine and feminine spirits

Answer 26

Two-Spirits” is the translation of the Northern Algonquin phrase niizh manitoag

Question 27

In terms of Two-Spirited Peoples:

t/f - Sometimes children up until puberty remained genderless

Answer 27

true