regarding effective approaches for acculturated (i.e., dispossessed and alienated) urban Indians and Indigenous peoples. !
Cultural Mistrust: Psychologists must find a way to measure and address the cultural mistrust that many First peoples feel toward government (i.e., colonized) medical services. For example, at a recent conference Inuit leaders reported they would not allow travel "south" (off the reservation) for medical care, due to past experiences where children disappeared and were never heard from again (as in the 1950's tuberculosis epidemic in Canada) (Silversides, 2010). Cultural mistrust is a particularly tricky proposition when psychology is a product of the culture of the colonizers and even Indian or Native psychologists must receive training within the colonial education system.
!
Empowerment: Recruit more Indians, Alaska and Hawai'i Natives, and global Indigenous peoples into the field of psychology as researchers, educators, practitioners and policy-makers. Empower them with the necessary tools to elucidate and develop evidence- based culturally relevant mental health constructs and paradigms that are community specific. This requires financial investment, i.e., more money.
!
Political Action: Psychology must stand up for the dispossessed but also support political movements that preserve the existing way of life of traditional Indigenous communities. The age of colonization is not yet over, and we must use our education and our power to resist it. This would be a primary prevention approach to Indigenous mental health issues — address them before they are created.
Indigenous people are just as much a part of the complex modern world as any of us, and Indigenous psychologies are equally complex and important. They may not look like our psychologies; they may be different, they may be unique, but they must be nurtured, respected and allowed to emerge. A key concept psychology must focus on in Indigenous mental health: empowerment.
Is there such a thing as Indigenous mental health? I hold that we do not yet fully know what such a construct will look like, other than restoration of the Indigenous to an uncolonized state. Yet even this conceptualization has its limitations - it must not be viewed through the lens of romantic naivete which many in our mainstream culture use to gaze in simplistic nostalgia on the "primitive". Indigenous people are just as much a part of the complex modern world as any of us, and Indigenous psychologies are equally complex and important. They may not look like our psychologies; they may be different, they may be unique, but they must be nurtured, respected and allowed to emerge. A key concept psychology must focus on in Indigenous mental health: empowerment. As Nathan Obed, the director of social -V-