culture Archives - CHAIM Centre

Chris Mushquash: Indigenous Youth Mental Health

CHAIM Centre — Sat, 05 Dec 2015 00:56:57 +0000

By Josee Beaudry, Department of Psychology, �Ӱ�ԭ�� University

Christopher Mushquash is Ojibway and a member of Pays Plat First Nation, located on the north shore of Lake Superior. Among many titles, he is a clinical psychologist, Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology at Lakehead University and the Northern Ontario School of Medicine, and a Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Mental Health and Addiction.

His work is very much influenced by his past experiences and who considers himself to be. He tries to use those experiences within his work as both a researcher and a clinician.

Having an Indigenous background and growing up rurally allow him to not only see some of the disparities in health but also the great strength, wisdom, and diversity in culture-based healing approaches. Cultural traditions differ from region to region and to simply force one’s own ideals onto communities is, at best, ineffective in addressing issues and, at worst, can do harm. This mindfulness led him to develop a skill set that would make him useful to people from communities like his own. In general, Mushquash looks into ways of increasing wellness. Through research he hopes to find ways to help people manage difficulties and past experiences. He also hopes to enlighten people about their approach to research and interventions in Indigenous communities.

Mental Health and Overall Wellness
Mushquash is currently addressing a number of research questions with multiple indigenous communities across the country. Some of the main areas he is focusing on include, trying to understand what mental well-being means from the perspective of the First Nations peoples. Perhaps most importantly, what steps must be taken to use that understanding to improve services and help those in need. This understanding starts by viewing mental health less through a mainstream lens and more through culturally-based one.

The most prominent view on well-being is a Western medical approach, often thought of as an absence of illness. Meaning, if you aren’t sick, you’re healthy. Indigenous communities view health more as a balance of various aspects of overall wellness. Depicted by the medicine wheel, an Indigenous view of health and wellness takes on a more holistic perspective.

Physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health are aspects of one’s overall well-being; there isn’t a specific focus on one or the other. Mushquash suggests that promoting wellness isn’t just about making people who are sick feel better but about nurturing people as a whole. It is this understanding of wellness that he uses to promote change in services from community to community. Communities always find approaches that work best for them. He tries to not dictate what approach they take but rather helps them find and develop their own, based on their own experiences, cultures, and contexts.

A Culture-based Approach

In his talk on Indigenous Youth Mental Health, Mushquash provided examples of issues that arise when applying the same standards across community to community and individually in the diagnosis. Some of the diagnostic criteria can appear to contradict each other, there are many possible combinations of symptom presentations that could lead to diagnosis, and two individuals diagnosed with the same disorder could have different symptom profiles. The truth is there are many individual, cultural, and contextual factors at play in how mental health difficulties are expressed. Misdiagnosis can occur and people may not get the help that they need.

Mushquash and his colleagues’ research on mental health and addiction show that social determinants greatly influence the prevalence and expression of disorders. Genetics, biological factors or brain neurochemicals associated with mental health difficulties are one part of the picture. But poverty, homelessness, access to services, and education also influence mental health. And for many Indigenous groups exposure to colonization practices and assimilation policies have generational and intergenerational effects on mental health. Mushquash and his colleagues try to contextualize Indigenous conceptualizations of wellness within this framework.

Mushquash gives credit to everyone he works with for the research he is a part of and the work he continues to do today. He is proud to work with a lot of great students, and is a great mentor, researcher, and clinician who promotes an Indigenous understanding of wellness. He hopes to one day see fewer misconceptions of well-being and improved health among indigenous populations.

The Strength and Persistence to Regrow

CHAIM Centre — Thu, 18 Jun 2015 11:55:44 +0000

Every forest is a little magical. Unique layout, diversity, and character—no two forests are ever the same. But when a fire rolls through the forest, it can swallow everything. Colours that once stood as brilliant greens or families of intertwined wood and fibers are all destroyed. All are charred. All become black. No matter the immense amount of diversity in the forest beforehand, the fire leaves a forest looking exactly the same—black, broken, and destroyed. Sometimes air attack arrives at a fire after we’ve started suppression, and so we pull back from the fire’s edge. When we return, it’s shocking to see what’s happened in those few absent moments—where there was forest, equipment, wild-living-things—there is now nothing. Just burnt. Sometimes it’s almost unrecognizable. That unique tree lost all its foliage. Or that rock now stands completely on its own. There aren’t many words to describe how it feels to see a burnt over area after the fire has calmed down, except truly amazing. It’s amazing how everything is gone, and all that remains is the solid, uniform, black. The forest loses all its character. It all looks the same. Few remains exist to remind you how diverse it used to be.

I remember driving through town in my first year with my crew when a public announcement was broadcasted on the radio. It was about Residential schools. “What’s this all about.” I had no idea. My crewmember started to explain it to me. A partnership between the Canadian government and the churches supported the removal of First Nations children from their families to Residential schools. Children were taken from their homes. Boys’ hair was cut short. Their clothes were mainstreamed. They were banned from practicing their home language or cultural practices. The severity of physical or sexual abuse varied.

“My mom remembers being scolded for saying ‘nimaanendam’ when she didn’t understand what the teacher was asking her. But other people won’t talk about the schools at all.”

The system strived to strip the unique culture from the children.

“And they were successful—think about all that knowledge and all those traditions that are gone… they can’t pass any of it down to us because they don’t know any of it anymore. So we lose it. It’s just… gone.”

We continued to drive downtown Kenora.

“And so you always hear people look down on the homeless or drunk Indians in town, but can you blame them? If their parents were abused in school by supposed superiors, and developed a substance abuse problem, then had their own children, how can they be supportive and successful parents, when they struggle to take care of themselves?”

There’s more to substance abuse than just the addiction to the feeling. It’s the coping. The conditioning. The necessity.

“I know a man that drove to Calgary for his settlement. He didn’t want anyone he knew to hear his case.”

The Indian Residential School Settlement Agreement attempts to price reconciliation. How can you really price complete loss of knowledge or culture? What is the price of revisiting and refreshing the memories of such pain?

“Some people say that the memories are too painful to revisit in front of a courtroom of people… the money isn’t worth the cost of reliving those memories.”

I’ve only started to ask, learn and understand the repercussions and effects from such a shameful historical event, though it’s given me a greater appreciation for peoples’ inner warriors. Those warriors: persisting to fight for what they believe, whether it be traditional or adopted knowledge and practice. A friend of mine disallowed his son from cutting his hair, despite schoolmates mocking him for having “girls” hair—his culture was to wear his black hair long. So my friend proudly grew his hair long again as well—he is supporting his culture. I met an elderly man at the Kenora library. I was always envious of his black fox fur, deerskin, beaded gloves he bought handmade from his community. He once told me to never go to a Pow Wow—inappropriate things happen there. Bad things, he said. He was a Christian. That was his culture.

Culture is not an outlined set of specifications or requirements. It’s not a definition of certain songs, practices, or beliefs. A person’s culture is derived from a collection of experiences, choices, and goals, irrespective of skin colour, or born label. While parts of someone’s specific culture may be lost, or forgotten, culture is always being rewritten, fine-tuned, tweaked, and regrown. It’s amazing how people can be so broken down, yet the smallest flicker of light remaining from within can support and strengthen regrowth.

Regeneration of a forest after a fire can sometimes take years. It will never look exactly the same as it did originally, but the components are all there—brilliant green foliage, intertwined woods and fibers, unique layout. In fact, the growing season following a forest fire supports some new species, like morels and blueberries – new additions that strengthen the ecosystem. One thing that never fails to amaze me is how quickly regeneration begins after destruction. When you look hard enough, you’ll spot it; green will poke through the charred, blackened earth only days after a fire has stripped the land of everything it can. Despite robbing beauty and life, there are some things a fire will never be able to take from the land: persistence, resilience, and strength.

Author Ariel Root is currently in Kenora in her fourth season working as a forest fire fighter for the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry. She has a BSc in Food Science & Nutrition from �Ӱ�ԭ�� University in 2012, and is currently a graduate student in the Health Science, Technology and Policy program at �Ӱ�ԭ�� University. She has been featured on APTN’s new hit TV show, Playing with Fire, Season 2.

Come back for next week’s instalment.

Photos by Ariel Root