LEC 9: Grief & Challenges for Indigenous Peoples

Question 1

Challenges for Indigenous Peoples

Answer 1

• Colonical hisotry
• Loss and continued loss
• Physical and mental health disparities
• Culturally appropriate interventions

Question 2

Complicated Grief in Aboriginal People

Answer 2

• Limited studies
• Grief- varies by the individual, by culture, and across time
• Complicated grief is a chronic and debilitating consequence of bereavement that is associated with clinically significant distress and impairment
• The past impactes the present

Question 3

Indigenous Peoples and Grief

Answer 3

• Challenges
• Sociopolitical hisotry between indegenous and non-indigenous peoples in Canada
• Intergenerational trauma and complicated grief
  
  • Hypothesized: an increased risk for complicated grief r/t increased rates of all-cause mortality and death by suicide
  • Face concurrent stressors and hardships (adverse childhood events, poverty, unemployment, and witnessing traumatic events such as violence and homocide)

Question 4

History of Relationship Between Indegenous and Non-Indegenous People

Answer 4

• Colonization
  
  • Epidemics
  • Residential schools
  • Indian act

Question 5

Residential Schools: Long-Term Implications

Answer 5

• Cultural denigration, humiliation, and shaming were standard practices in residential schools.
• This deprived the children of self-esteem, and in many cases, led to life-long feelings of self-hatred and depression
• 60’s scoop

Question 6

The Indian Act 1876

Answer 6

• A colonist relationship
• Created to guide Canada’s relationship with First Nations people by imposing several restrictions on them in order to meet two main goals:
  
  • To civilize the First Nations people
  • To assimilate them into Canadian society

Question 7

Indigenous Responses to Colonization

Answer 7

• Intergenerational trauma- hisotry of loss and trauma
• Historic trauma transmission (HTT)
• Disconnection
• PTSD
• Increased health and mental health challenges

Question 8

Intergenerational & Multigenerational Grief

Answer 8

• Generational or multi-generational trauma happens when the effects of trauma are not resolved in one generation.
• When trauma is ignored and there is no support for dealing with it, the trauma will be passed from one generation to the next.
• What we learn to see as “normal”, when we are children, we pass on to our own children.
• Children who learn that physical and sexual abuse is “normal”, and who have never dealt with the feelings that come from this, may inflict physical abuse and sexual abuse on their own children.
• The unhealthy ways of behaving that people use to protect themselves can be passed on to children, without them even knowing they are doing so.

Question 9

Historical Trauma

Answer 9

• Unremitting personal and collective trauma due to demographic collapse, resulting from early influenza and smallpox epidemics and other infectious diseases, conquest, warfare, slavery, colonization, proselytization, famine and starvation, the 1892 to the late 1960s residential school period and forced assimilation

Question 10

The Present

Answer 10

• Internalized oppression
• Intergenerational trauma
• Stigma

Question 11

Internalized Oppression

Answer 11

• Systematic subjugation of a group of people by another group of people with access to social power, the result of which benefits one group over the other and is maintained by social beliefs and practices.
• Because oppression is institutionalized in society, target group members often believe the messages and internalize the oppression…when believe the stereotypes they are taught about themselves…tend to act them out…perpetuate…reinforces the prejudice

Question 12

Prior to Engagment with a Patient and Family

Answer 12

• Understanding of colonization & continued impact on current mental health & well-being (Kirmayer, Brass & Valaskakis, 2009) and neocolonial practices (Smith, 1999)
• Comprehension that all peoples’ mental health & well-being are impacted by the SES (PHAC, 2010; Raphael, 2006)
• Cross-cultural training – Indigenous worldviews, cultures, and traditions (Calabrese, 2008)

Question 13

Supproting Indegenous Health & Well-Being in Families

Answer 13

• Require accurate historical portrayal of the relationship between Indigenous & non-Indigenous peoples in Canada
  
  • Creates an informed perspective
• Self awareness & reflection
  
  • Insight into personal role (colonized or colonizer)
  • Our perceptions influence our interactions, communication competence is key
• Interpersonal communication
  
  • Practice cultural safety, Rogerian principles (respect, positive regard, non-judgmental)
  • Guiding Principles/Professional Code of Ethics
  • Goal = successful engagement - RELATIONSHIP