Coming full circle: Cultural restoration for First Nations wellness

CrossCurrents

By Bill Mussell

Voices calling for services to address First Nations mental health, addictions, youth suicide and mental illness have increased in recent times, thanks to the fine work of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, the Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology and other national entities such as the Canadian Alliance on Mental Illness and Mental Health.

The Senate Committee underscored the unique mental health challenges faced by First Nations and Inuit people as an issue of primary concern for federal, provincial and territorial governments: to improve mental wellness outcomes for these groups and to have the perspective of First Nations and Inuit people more closely linked to the development of policies, programs and services.

For over two decades, the First Nations and Inuit Health Branch of Health Canada has funded First Nations addictions treatment and counselling services. It is evident at the community level that it is vital to provide complementary mental health services and extend these to more First Nations. Canada’s Inuit, like First Nations leadership, stress the importance of community-based decision-making, establishing culturally rich programs, new service networks, treatment resources, capacity-building opportunities and integration of services.

To honour principles of wholism, connectedness, togetherness, cultural ways of knowing and core cultural institutions such as family and clan, the following definition of “mental wellness” presented in the 2002 Mental Wellness Framework, has gained popularity: “Mental wellness is a lifelong journey to achieve balance of body, mind and spirit. It includes self-esteem, personal dignity, cultural identity and connectedness in the presence of harmonious physical, emotional, mental and spiritual wellness. Mental wellness must be defined in terms of the values and beliefs of Inuit and First Nations people.”

For many First Nations Peoples, mental health is not a function simply of the individual but of social structures outside the person that teach practices to maintain, support and restore balance. Key aspects of these structures are family and community, which contain systems responsible for education, recreation, special care and employment, and other valued aspects of life. Mental illness is the outcome of a lack of balance or harmony in one or more aspects of these essential systems, a lack of which may be a consequence of forces that deprive or overwhelm these systems.

According to the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, good health is the outcome of living actively, productively and safely, with reasonable control over the forces affecting everyday life, with the means to nourish body and soul, in harmony with one’s neighbours and oneself, and with hope for the future of one’s children and one’s land.

When all things of the Creator are respected and honoured, especially the land and its resources, care of human life becomes foremost among values. Such care, when given, ensures that ill health is prevented, healthy infants are born, young people are engaged in everyday and special activities so that their lives are culturally rich and the needs of elders receive priority attention.

Colonization brought changes that attacked, undermined and devalued the aboriginal worldview, while at the same time drastically altering the conditions of life. Through their government, the churches and residential schools, the colonizers imposed the European worldview, values and beliefs upon Aboriginal Peoples. Through the introduction of foreign diseases, the imposition of the reserve system, prohibitions against spiritual practices and speaking of traditional languages, and the introduction of alcohol, all aspects of aboriginal life deteriorated. Colonization brought negative, extreme and rapid changes to aboriginal life, while denying the validity of the tools traditionally used by First Nations to cope with change.

Among the consequences we see today are stressed aboriginal communities and, too often, the absence of a clear set of values, beliefs and strategies necessary to guide people in their efforts to cope with stress. When physical and emotional safety and security are lacking, fear, anxiety and anger build. In these states it is very difficult to act in caring, rational ways, to learn, to be reflective and to create understanding both of themselves and their world necessary to bring about positive changes.

No mental health care system or social service system has been provided to First Nations. The more traditional and natural ways of caring have been displaced by Western ways that continue to be foreign to these communities.

It is essential that First Nations learn their family and community history and explore this history in the context of worldview. Such knowledge builds understanding, reveals the relationship of the past with the present and the future and provides tools necessary to engage in the process of making personal and social change. Some communities have access to mental health services on an as-needed basis, but not to funded programs or service systems that are culturally based and feature wholistic healing.

Practices based on traditional ways would be preventive. Caregivers would intervene at the first signs of difficulty. This approach to care shows that the caregivers do not expect the worst to take place - they are not crisis-oriented. It shows attunement to one another and awareness that imbalances experienced by one individual affect others if they are ignored. Bringing addiction and mental health resources together at the community level could do a great deal to restore family and community wellness.

The spirit that holds a relatively healthy group of families together is embedded in community. This strength is connected with living on the land that has been home for many generations. For its members, the healthier community offers physical, psychological, intellectual and spiritual resources. Social and emotional health link each person to family, community and the earth in a circle of dependence and interdependence. Community members enjoy wellness.

W. J. (Bill) Mussell, who is of Sto:lo (First Nations) heritage, is manager and principal educator of the Sal’i’shan Institute in Chilliwack, British Columbia, and chairman of the Native Mental Health Association of Canada.

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