Aboriginal people in Canada experience disproportionately high rates of
family violence, suicide, substance abuse, and mental health problems such as
depression and posttraumatic stress disorder. However, although culturally based
healing resources for aboriginal people are inadequate to meet the need, available
mainstream mental health services are underutilized by aboriginal clients.
Therefore, while building on previous research looking at the problems faced by
mainstream services and non-aboriginal counsellors in engaging and helping
aboriginal clients, this research assumed there have been successes and examined
aboriginal experiences of successful engagement and healing within such
contexts. The methodology for this study is a narrative based approach that meets
the mandates for ethical and appropriate indigenous research as described by
those of authority in the field of indigenous research, and answers the question:
How do aboriginal clients develop, experience, and maintain successful healing
relationships with non-aboriginal counsellors in mainstream mental health
settings? Narrative analysis of interviews with seven aboriginal mental health
clients who believed they had a positive counselling experience in a mainstream
setting produced findings that suggest common themes of interaction and
discovery mark successful counselling relationships. Generally clients described
an increased sense of connection and belonging, harmony, integration of
traditional aboriginal and non-aboriginal practice and beliefs, self-acceptance,
understanding, and balance as critical. However the defining characteristic of a
successful counselling experience was expressed as the capacity of the
counselling relationship to increase each client's clarification of how aboriginality
is meaningfully and uniquely understood. These findings have implications for
mainstream mental health services and indigenous research in general. / Education, Faculty of / Educational and Counselling Psychology, and Special Education (ECPS), Department of / Graduate
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UBC/oai:circle.library.ubc.ca:2429/18446 |
| Date | 05 1900 |
| Creators | Howell-Jones, Gail E. |
| Source Sets | University of British Columbia |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, Thesis/Dissertation |
| Rights | For non-commercial purposes only, such as research, private study and education. Additional conditions apply, see Terms of Use https://open.library.ubc.ca/terms_of_use. |
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