Panel says 'system' caused mental health problems

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A panel of Native service leaders were united in the feeling that the major source in Native mental health problems is the intrusive "non-Native system."

Speaking to an audience of health professionals, the panel addressed a symposium on Community Participation in Mental Health on Thursday, December 4, at the University of Alberta.

Mental illness refers to those symptoms of failing to cope with the stresses of society. Alcohol and drug abuse, physical violence, spouse battering, depression, anxiety and loneliness are in the category of mental disorder, and often have their origin in stress and loss of self-esteem.

Mental disorder is not "being crazy." According to Poundmaker's Lodge Director Pat Shirt, "a lot of alcoholics and drug addicts" think they are crazy. Alcohol use can begin with trying to prove the user is gown up, and often is thought to be a way out of pressure and stress. Shirt feels that alcohol and drug use dig the person into a deeper hole. "Alcohol is the poor man's psychiatrist," says Shirt. "The user feels that 'healing is only a drink away. Actually, once you stay clear from a while, these mental illnesses disappear." With the majority of Native people sentenced to Alberta institutions involved with alcohol, "there would be no Native murder in Alberta without alcohol." The temporary situation, alcohol, itself turns into a killing problem.

Loro Carmen, social service consultant, said three major factors are the deeper causes of Native mental disorder:

1. Non-Native imported religion destroyed the Native sense of dignity and social institutions. "When you take away the culture of thousands of years - and do it quickly, when you tell us our ways are no good, that people are evil and superstitious, you help

to destroy us.

2. Non-Native government was and is forced on Native people. European govern-ment is imperialistic, hierarchical. If you go back to Indian days, it was not who had the most relatives - the Elders would recognize talent, and would take years to develop it.

3. Enforced poverty - "Native people can see the outside world through television, but have no real access to it."

Two Native women who had been involved in provincial mental health programs described their frustrations.

A social worker described how, after finishing her college degree, she was employed as a social worker, and that the work itself caused excessive stresses. Seeking help, she voluntarily admitted herself to residential treatment. She worked three years and took one month each year for treatment.

Another ex-patient reported that treatment consisted of being a given diagnostic label, and having pills prescribed.

Both said what they needed was not pills, but a closeness to a person, somebody to talk with.

Joey Hamelin, working with the Alberta Hospital, pointed out that "answers (to the causes of mental disorders) cannot be provided, but there is a long history of intervention by non-Native people in the lives of Natives," with destructive results.

John Tees, public relations director with Native Outreach, says he sees the negative results of mental stress in people looking for jobs. Counsellors with their clients, says Tees, often have to help people to face the stress of new jobs.

In stating the need for Native-designed therapies, Gary Nault, who describes himself as a shamen-in-training, says that "we need our own doctors."

All panelists agreed that western medicine "operates out of a partial model." Psychiatry is concerned only with medicine and intellectual answers, but "Native healing goes deeper to the spiritual healing."

"The Native spiritual leaders must get themselves together and then go out to the communities," says Carmen. "We are capable ourselves of studying our problems, and of developing our approaches."