Healing for Mental Health: An Intercultural Perspective

This panel is being organized in partnership with the Canadian Innovation Centre for Mental Health in the Workplace

Panelists:

Moderator: Marie-Andree Hould (Canadian Innovation Centre for Mental Health in the Workplace)
Angela Stulberg (Indigenous Employees’ Circle)
Lee Hyndman (Indigenous Employees’ Circle)
Insiya Rasiwala-Finn (Ayurvedic Practicioner and Yoga Instructor)
Bohang Benedix, Clinical Counsellor

Description

A discussion on healing methods from a variety of perspectives. Traditional western culture leans towards medication and therapy as the standard way to support mental health challenges and illnesses. These methods are useful to many. However, there are many other ways to support and treat mental health that are informed by other traditions and histories. Panelists will be creating a dialogue to foster awareness not only of the particular challenges faced by many communities within Canada, but also on their healing practices that lie beyond what would be considered mainstream, colonial methods.

Perspectives include:

Ayurveda and Yoga: Deriving from India, Ayurveda and Yoga are wisdom sciences that work complementarily together to holistically address the health and balance of the body, mind and spirit. According to Ayurveda, we are made up of the building blocks of all natural phenomena; the five great elements: Earth, Air, Fire, Water and Ether (space). Through an understanding of the elements within and without, Ayurveda teaches you how to attain optimal health in relationship to the world through a deeper understanding of your constitution and how to achieve balance. Both Ayurveda and Yoga work with the rhythms of nature to prevent illness and gain awareness of how to be in harmony with the cycles. Yoga is not just about stretching, it is a medicine that helps to rhythmically move breath throughout the body to generate awareness and a sense of grounded spaciousness. In Ayurveda we call stress and anxiety in the body too much Vata – the chaos of wind and air swirling throughout the body. Ayurveda and Yoga are aligned practices that can help detoxify and cleanse the system to find peace in the body and mind. While sometimes seeming esoteric, they are grounded in practical and tangible principles that help us to view our growth, progress and transform the process of daily living.

Indigenous: Land-based healing. Traditional ways of knowing. The Medicine Wheel. What do these things have to do with Indigenous mental health and wellness? Traditional and land-based methods of understanding recognize that being on the land itself provides healing. Western/colonial medical research is now documenting in detail the many health and healing benefits of spending time outdoors in mother nature and that this improves cognition, memory and mood. In order to promote wellness and resilience in Indigenous communities, it's vital to reconnect with our cultural identity and practices. Indigenous concepts of psychological resilience recognize the importance of our relations with others and with the environment. Land is a central dimension of wellness that is imbedded in Indigenous traditional knowledge and is a necessary foundation for culturally responsive health care needs in our communities. In addition to the connection to mother nature, through Sharing Circles, Storytelling, and reconnecting with our culture and meeting with knowledge keepers and elders, and through ceremonies including the sweat lodge, all also improves cognition, memory and mood. An Indigenous perspective of mental health has a holistic view from working towards a balance within self: our mind, body, spirit and emotions from which flows an interconnected balance with our families, communities and our larger environment.

Black/African: Participants will emerge from the event with an understanding of healing methods with an intersectional lens according to Black Indigenous ways of healing from Africa (southern African Bantu/Sotho tribes). We will learn about the role of spirituality and religion in Black/African mental wellness. You will be further introduced to the intricate relationship African people have with nature and the environment, relating their connection using their bodies to ground themselves and thereby providing feelings of psychological belonging. Traditional support structures will be highlighted with a focus on the role of spiritual and traditional healers, including medicine healers and spiritual healers. We will discuss African therapies towards achieving individual psychological health irrespective of where people live and work, to help learn how to feel racially safe when in the minority. The importance of community (Ubuntu/Botho) and African ways of creating racial and cultural safety and belonging through other therapeutic forms of art will be highlighted, such as music, dance, expressive and performative arts, and story telling. Strategies to continue to be authentic, courageous, and with a healthy psychological relationship with racialized Black identity in Canada will be shared.