Aboriginal peoples in Canada have diverse cultures but share common social and political challenges that have contributed to their experiences of health and illness. This collection addresses the origins of mental health and social problems and the emergence of culturally responsive approaches to services and health promotion. Healing Traditions is not a handbook of practice but a resource for thinking critically about current issues in the mental health of indigenous peoples. The book is divided into four sections: an overview of the mental health of indigenous peoples; origins and representations of social suffering; transformations of identity and community; and traditional healing and mental health services. Cross-cutting themes include: the impact of colonialism, sedentarization, and forced assimilation; the importance of land for indigenous identity and an ecocentric self; notions of space and place as part of the cultural matrix of identity and experience; and processes of healing and spirituality as sources of resilience. Offering a unique combination of mental health and socio-cultural perspectives, Healing Traditions will be useful to all concerned with the wellbeing of Aboriginal peoples including health professionals, community workers, planners and administrators, social scientists, educators, and students.

Note to Readers: Publisher does not guarantee quality or access to any included digital components if book is purchased through a third-party seller. First edition named a 2013 PROSE Award Winner in Nursing and Allied Health Sciences This textbook for Canadian nursing and allied health students explores the major health issues of Indigenous populations and how to improve their overall health. The second edition addresses a key development since the first edition was published: an increasing consensus among Indigenous peoples that their health is tied to environmental determinants, both physical and philosophical. This text describes what is distinctive about Indigenous approaches to health and healing and why it should be studied as a discrete field. It provides a framework for professionals to approach Indigenous clients in a way that both respects the client’s worldview while retaining a professional epistemology. Grounded in the concepts of cultural sensitivity, competency, and safety—yet filled with practical information—this book integrates historical, social, and clinical approaches illuminated by concrete examples from the field and relevant case studies. New to the Second Edition: Delivers thoroughly updated content, statistics, and coverage of political developments since 2013 Includes a complete test bank of multiple choice, true/false, and short answer questions in each chapter Provides sample PowerPoint presentation lectures in each chapter Key Features: Authored by a leading researcher and educator in First Nations and Inuit health Serves as the only up-to-date text on Indigenous health in Canada Enhances learning with chapter objectives, critical thinking exercises, abundant primary source material, and references

Imagine a world in which people see themselves as embedded in the natural order, with ethical responsibilities not only toward each other, but also toward rocks, trees, water and all nature. Imagine seeing yourself not as a master of Creation, but as the most humble, dependent and vulnerable part. Rupert Ross explores this indigenous world view and the determination of indigenous thinkers to restore it to full prominence today. He comes to understand that an appreciation of this perspective is vital to understanding the destructive forces of colonization. As a former Crown Attorney in northern Ontario, Ross witnessed many of these forces. He examines them here with a special focus on residential schools and their power to destabilize entire communities long after the last school has closed. With help from many indigenous authors, he explores their emerging conviction that healing is now better described as “decolonization therapy.” And the key to healing, they assert, is a return to the traditional indigenous world view. The author of two previous bestsellers on indigenous themes, Dancing with a Ghost and Returning to the Teachings, Ross shares his continuing personal journey into traditional understanding with all of the confusion, delight and exhilaration of learning to see the world in a different way. Ross sees the beginning of a vibrant future for indigenous people across Canada as they begin to restore their own definition of a “healthy person” and bring that indigenous wellness into being once again. Indigenous Healing is a hopeful book, not only for indigenous people, but for all others open to accepting some of their ancient lessons about who we might choose to be.

Five hundred years of colonization have taken an incalculable toll on the Indigenous peoples of the Americas: substance use disorders and shockingly high rates of depression, diabetes, and other chronic health conditions brought on by genocide and colonial control. With passionate logic and chillingly clear prose, author and educator Suzanne Methot uses history, human development, and her own and others’ stories to trace the roots of Indigenous cultural dislocation and community breakdown in an original and provocative examination of the long-term effects of colonization. But all is not lost. Methot also shows how we can come back from this with Indigenous ways of knowing lighting the way.

Over the past fifteen years, Canada’s Aboriginal healing community has emerged as a vital and visible force. Creative recovery programs have been established across the country, and international initiatives such as the “Healing Our Spirit Worldwide” gatherings have originated here. The Canadian government has thrown millions of dollars at the issue of addictions, yet alcoholism, fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, drug abuse and gambling are epidemic today in the lives of Aboriginal people. Where the Pavement Ends is filled with inspiring stories gathered from journalist Marie Wadden’s discussions with activists across Canada who are involved in the Aboriginal healing movement. But the book is also a passionate wake-up call aimed at all Canadians. Existing government policies, Wadden argues, perpetuate the problems that are tearing Aboriginal families and communities apart. We must make social healing in Aboriginal communities an immediate national priority. We must also demand public policy that guarantees First Nations, Inuit and Métis people the right to live as full and equal citizens. In these ways, we can offer true support to these marginalized communities.

Using postmodern and postcolonial conceptions of the body and the power relations of colonization, Kelm shows how a pluralistic medical system evolved among Canada's most populous Aboriginal population. She explores the effect which Canada's Indian policy has had on Aboriginal bodies and considers how humanitarianism and colonial medicine were used to pathologize Aboriginal bodies and institute a regime of doctors, hospitals, and field matrons, all working to encourage assimilation. In this detailed but highly readable ethnohistory, Kelm reveals how Aboriginal people were able to resist and alter these forces in order to preserve their own cultural understanding of their bodies, disease, and medicine.

From the earliest settler policies to deal with the “Indian problem,” to contemporary government-run programs ostensibly designed to help Indigenous people, public policy has played a major role in creating the historical trauma that so greatly impacts the lives of Canada’s Aboriginal peoples. Taking Back Our Spirits traces the link between Canadian public policies, the injuries they have inflicted on Indigenous people, and Indigenous literature’s ability to heal individuals and communities. Episkenew examines contemporary autobiography, fiction, and drama to reveal how these texts respond to and critique public policy, and how literature functions as “medicine” to help cure the colonial contagion.

In Decolonizing Trauma Work, Renee Linklater explores healing and wellness in Indigenous communities on Turtle Island. Drawing on a decolonizing approach, which puts the “soul wound” of colonialism at the centre, Linklater engages ten Indigenous health care practitioners in a dialogue regarding Indigenous notions of wellness and wholistic health, critiques of psychiatry and psychiatric diagnoses, and Indigenous approaches to helping people through trauma, depression and experiences of parallel and multiple realities. Through stories and strategies that are grounded in Indigenous worldviews and embedded with cultural knowledge, Linklater offers purposeful and practical methods to help individuals and communities that have experienced trauma. Decolonizing Trauma Work, one of the first books of its kind, is a resource for education and training programs, health care practitioners, healing centres, clinical services and policy initiatives.

Wícihitowin is the first Canadian social work book written by First Nations, Inuit and Métis authors who are educators at schools of social work across Canada. The book begins by presenting foundational theoretical perspectives that develop an understanding of the history of colonization and theories of decolonization and Indigenist social work. It goes on to explore issues and aspects of social work practice with Indigenous people to assist educators, researchers, students and practitioners to create effective and respectful approaches to social work with diverse populations. Traditional Indigenous knowledge that challenges and transforms the basis of social work with Indigenous and other peoples comprises a third section of the book. Wícihitowin concludes with an eye to the future, which the authors hope will continue to promote the innovations and creativity presented in this groundbreaking work.

Numerous studies, inquiries, and statistics accumulated over the years have demonstrated the poor health status of Aboriginal peoples relative to the Canadian population in general. Aboriginal Health in Canada is about the complex web of physiological, psychological, spiritual, historical, sociological, cultural, economic, and environmental factors that contribute to health and disease patterns among the Aboriginal peoples of Canada. The authors explore the evidence for changes in patterns of health and disease prior to and since European contact, up to the present. They discuss medical systems and the place of medicine within various Aboriginal cultures and trace the relationship between politics and the organization of health services for Aboriginal people. They also examine popular explanations for Aboriginal health patterns today, and emphasize the need to understand both the historical-cultural context of health issues, as well as the circumstances that give rise to variation in health problems and healing strategies in Aboriginal communities across the country. An overview of Aboriginal peoples in Canada provides a very general background for the non-specialist. Finally, contemporary Aboriginal healing traditions, the issue of self-determination and health care, and current trends in Aboriginal health issues are examined.