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Engaging Indigenous People in Mental Health Services in Australia

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The Palgrave Handbook of Sociocultural Perspectives on Global Mental Health

Abstract

Engaging with Indigenous Australians through appropriate and effective mental health services is an urgent imperative in Australia. The health status of Indigenous Australians lags unacceptably behind other Australians on almost every aspect of health, including mental health. For mental health, however, even the relevance of the concept as the basis of an effective praxis, has been questioned. In this chapter, we provide a historical context for rates of contemporary mental distress two to three times non-Indigenous Australian rates. Our analysis next addresses the role of pertinent social determinants, including racism, and details the profound effects of a yet-ongoing colonisation. We highlight the important role that trauma plays in the mental health of Indigenous Australians and situate mental health within the broader context of Indigenous community well-being. We conclude by suggesting strategies for mental health services to become more effective, culturally safe places with which Indigenous Australians would want to engage.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The term ‘estate’ should not imply European notions of land sequestration for the benefit of the fortunate few. It, rather, conveys the alternative reading of ‘well-managed land’, which was worked to provide the resources needed by the whole group through such means as: ‘fire-stick farming’; sustainable, strictly-seasonal food-gathering; and intricate riverbed fish traps. Incoming colonial authorities did not recognise such unfamiliar ‘management’—an important precursor to dispossession and the legal fiction of Terra Nullius: ‘land belonging to no one’.

  2. 2.

    ‘Clayton’s’ (‘virtual’ or ‘de facto’) apartheid takes its cue from ironic Australian vernacular usage of the non-alcoholic, scotch lookalike, Clayton’s (Kola) Tonic. The long-running advertising catchphrase was: ‘The drink you’re having when you’re not having a drink’.

  3. 3.

    The National Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation (ACCHO) describes NAHS as being ‘built on extensive community consultation to produce a landmark document that set the agenda for Aboriginal health and Torres Strait Islander health’. The Working Party comprised two Commonwealth Government representatives (including an Aboriginal Chairperson), eight State Government representatives, and nine Aboriginal community representatives.

  4. 4.

    Indigenous Australians employ a large range of self-descriptive terms, which may be applied differentially depending on context and/or preference. The term ‘Aboriginal’ is used in this context because this is the term that is used in the original study.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Remote Health at Flinders University and Charles Darwin University, Casuarina, NT, Australia

    Timothy A. Carey

  2. Central Australian Mental Health Service, Alice Springs, NT, Australia

    Timothy A. Carey

  3. Poche Centre for Indigenous Health and Well-Being at Flinders University, Bedford Park, SA, Australia

    Dennis R. McDermott

Authors
  1. Timothy A. Carey
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  2. Dennis R. McDermott
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Psychology, Health and Society University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom

    Ross G. White

  2. School of Social and Political Science, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, United Kingdom

    Sumeet Jain

  3. Department of Social Work and Social Care, University of Sussex, Brighton, United Kingdom

    David M.R. Orr

  4. CERMES3, Paris, France

    Ursula M. Read

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Carey, T.A., McDermott, D.R. (2017). Engaging Indigenous People in Mental Health Services in Australia. In: White, R., Jain, S., Orr, D., Read, U. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Sociocultural Perspectives on Global Mental Health. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-39510-8_27

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