Mental health care for Indigenous young people: moving culture from the margins to the centre

Abstract

Objective:

Recently, Indigenous academics have evolved an Indigenist discourse that centralises Indigenous ‘ways of knowing, being and doing’. Through this dialogue, Indigenous ‘ways of knowing and being’ augment Western biopsychosocial treatments.

Methods:

This paper outlines the authors’ clinical encounters with young people from the Koori community and ongoing consultation with Koori community Elders in Victoria that led to engaging young people and their families in an Indigenist dialogue.

Results:

The Indigenist dialogue facilitates deeper engagement in the therapeutic process, opportunities to mirror and reflect on young people’s experiences, and drawing parallels between Western health interventions and Aboriginal cultural ways of doing health and being healthy.

Conclusions:

The young people and their families evince greater faith in the management process and a deeper focus, centred awareness and knowledge of their Cultural rights and responsibilities. Future developments should include a systematic database with qualitative and quantitative data to support its evaluation and iterative development and improved community engagement to ensure holistic health gains are maintained.

Keywords

indigenous health aboriginal cultural practice indigenist approach

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