Impact of Acculturation

1
Impact of Acculturation

• Psychological Trauma
• Cumulative Trauma

2
Psychological Trauma

• Types of psychological trauma
• Type 1 Unanticipated single event/blow
• Most typical PTSD found in childhood
• Repetition, avoidance and hyperalertness
• Full detailed memories, cognitive reappraisals,
  misperceptions
• Type 2 repeated exposure to external events
• Attempts to protect psyche/self-preservation
• Massive denial, repression, identification with
  aggressor, aggression turned upon oneself,
  dissociation etc.
• Rage, sadness, absence of feeling
• (Terr, 1991, pp. 11-18)

3

• The essence of psychological trauma is the loss
  of faith that there is order and continuity in
  life. Trauma occurs when one loses the sense of
  having a safe place to retreat within or outside
  of oneself to deal with frightening emotions or
  experiences. (van der Kolk, Bessel, 1987, p. 31)
• Emotional attachment is essential for survival
  in children as well as for a sense of existential
  meaning in adults. A person is a
• Biological organism
• Develops in a social context, mother-infant bound
• Incorporates interpersonal relationships
  cultural influences (van der Kolk, Bessel, 1987,
  p. 31)

4
psychological recovery from trauma, perspective
and integration through awareness and containment
must be established so that ones sense of
continuity, belongingness, and rootedness are
restored. (Danieli, 1998, p.8-9) The
adjustment from the dismantling tribal culture
Family structure Identity including spirituality
and language Cumulative trauma Developmental
impact
5
The historical experiences may have contributed
to the development of maladaptive
individuals Tribes had mechanism in place to
maintain a healthy community The family was a
critical structure
6
Within an intergenerational context, the trauma
and its impact may be passed down as the family
legacy even to children born after the traumaYet
the role of the family as vehicle for
intergenerational transmission of core issues of
living and of adaptive and maladaptive ways of
defining and coping with them may vary among
cultures.
(Danieli, 1998, p. 9) Was
harm done through the federal policies that
included replacing a culture that included the
dismantling of a family structure?
7
Tiwahe-Family

• Ti-To Dwell
• Wa-Something pure or sacred
• He-That which exists
• That which exists in a pure and sacred manner

8
Account of a Navajo parent left at a boarding
school when she was 7 years old
Kind of an emptiness, when youre hanging on to
your moms skirt and trying hard not to cry.
Then when you get up to your turn, she
thumbprints the paper and she leaves and you
watch her go out the big metal doorsYour never
gonna be happy or have that warm feeling and
attitude towards life anymore. Thats what it
feels like, like taking your heart out and
putting in a cold river pebbleWhen you walk in
there, they take everything that youre about.
They jerk it away from you. They dont ask how
you feel about it. They never tell you anything.
They barely speak to you. They take everything
away from you
9
Robert Thomas, in Duran, Duran, Brave Heart,
states that Well an Indian family is not a
structure in a system of roles. It is a system
of relationships, first, from which the
activities emerge. It is not a role system. To
see it as a role system is a distortion. Now
there are activities there, but they emerge from
the relationship. Indian families are first a
system of personal, definitive relationships. By
tradition there are activities connected with
those relationships. That is what gives them a
role-like appearance. Thats not central. What
is central is the relationship. (1999, p. 67)
10
Social View

• Clash between cultures, acculturation
  affected
• Tribal structure
• Religious practices
• Personal and community identity
• Some have suggested the acculturation process as
  a precursor to psychiatric suicide conditions
  (Echohawk, 1997 Gone, 2006a, 2006b, 2006c, in
  press b Kirmayer, Brass, Tait, 2000 Lester,
  1997)
• 
  (Alcantara Gone, 2007, p. 469)

11

• This rupture and disintegration of AI/AN daily
  lifeways (conceptualized as cultural
  discontinuity) is proposed as a mediating
  mechanism in pathways to pathology, and therefore
  key to transformations of individual and
  collective identity (Gone, 1999, 2006b, 2006c, in
  press b Gone, Miller, Rappaport, 1999
  Kirmayer et al., 2000) (Alcantara Gone, 2007,
  p. 469)
• Settings characterized by lower socioeconomic
  status conditions and rural areas have been found
  to be associated with suicidality in AI/ANs
  (Lester, 1995 Mignone ONeil, 2005).
  (Alcantara Gone, 2007, p. 470)

12
Native American Mental Health

• Some Native American groups have remained a
  culturally distinct group
• Tradition, myth, linguistics, ritual, and belief
• Shift in counseling Native Amer.
  individuals/communities
• Relying on Western perspective of healing models
  and traditional healing models (Trimble
  Thurman, 2002)
• Same dispositions to acquire language and develop
  into intentional agents
• Utilize rituals, language, and spiritual laws to
  define wellness/illness
• Context influences meaning
• Everyday meaning/meaning within context of ritual

13

• Manson, Shore Bloom (1985) generated Hopi
  categories of psychopathology (depression). Five
  categories of illness were identified which led
  to the modification of the interview process when
  administration Diagnostic Interview Schedule
  (DIS)
• Incorporation of indigenous healing categories
  with DIS created the American Indian Depression
  Schedule
• Hopi forms of illness correlated with DSM-III
  criteria for depression
• Difference found in the type and degree between
  DSM and Hopi terms
• psychiatry has failed to consider the cultural
  dimension of illness how it is conceptualized,
  experienced, manifested, explained and treated
  (Manson, Shore, Bloom, 1985, p. 361)
• Appendix I of DSM-IV-TR cultural formulation
  outline

14

• This rupture and disintegration of AI/AN daily
  lifeways (conceptualized as cultural
  discontinuity) is proposed as a mediating
  mechanism in pathways to pathology, and therefore
  key to transformations of individual and
  collective identity (Gone, 1999, 2006b, 2006c, in
  press b Gone, Miller, Rappaport, 1999
  Kirmayer et al., 2000) (Alcantara Gone, 2007,
  p. 469)
• Settings characterized by lower socioeconomic
  status conditions and rural areas have been found
  to be associated with suicidality in AI/ANs
  (Lester, 1995 Mignone ONeil, 2005).
  (Alcantara Gone, 2007, p. 470)

15
Individual Protective Factors

• Spirituality associated with decrease in of
  reported suicide attempts (Garoutte 2003, In
  Alcantara Gone, 2007, p. 471-472)

16
Protective Factors Continued

• Strong family connectedness
• Social support
• Affective relationship with tribal leaders
• Positive attitude toward education
• Perceived interpersonal communication skills
• Discussion of problems with family or friends
• 
  (Alcantara Gone, 2007, p. 472)

17
Protective Factors Continued

• Presence of a nurse or clinic in school setting
  appeared to correlate with decreased suicide
  behaviors in female adolescents
• 
  (Alcantara Gone, 2007, p. 472)

18
Community Factors

• Cultural continuity was associated with reduced
  to non-existent rates of suicide in specific
  AI/AN communities
• Cultural continuity was measured by,
• Land claims
• Self-government
• Police, fire, and health protection/service
• Education
• Cultural facilities
• Attempts to preserver and promote cultures
  decrease suicide rates
• 
  (Alcantara Gone, 2007, p. 472)

19
(No Transcript)
20
Wopila(Thank-You)