February 28, 2018 - University of Regina
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February 28, 2018 1 Copyright Natalie Owl 2018 3/12/2018
Copyright Natalie Owl 2018 3/12/2018 2
Local Language Initiative
Community Engagement and
Research Dissemination
Assembly of First Nations -
Indigenous Language Initiative
Engagement
Intergenerational Transmission
Copyright Natalie Owl 2018 3/12/2018 3In 1988, Dr. Yellow Horse Brave Heart developed "theoretical constructs describing historical unresolved grief, historical trauma, and historical trauma response" (Brave Heart, 1998, p. 288). Copyright Natalie Owl 2018 3/12/2018 4
Historical trauma (HT) is defined as “cumulative trauma - collective and compounding emotional and psychic wounding (Niederland, 1989) - both over the life span and across generations” (Brave Heart, 1998, p. 288). Copyright Natalie Owl 2018 3/12/2018 5
WHAT IS HISTORIC TRAUMA? Copyright Natalie Owl 2018 3/12/2018 6
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HISTORIC TRAUMA
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HISTORIC TRAUMA
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COLONIZATION – FIVE AREAS OF IMPACT – No Recovery Time (Wesley-
Esquimaux & Smolewski, 2004)
Copyright Natalie Owl 2018 3/12/2018Historical trauma response (HTR) is "conceptualized as a constellation of features associated with a reaction to massive group trauma" (Brave Heart, Chase, Elkins & Altschul, 2011, p. 283). This constellation of features includes those for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and psychic trauma (Brave Heart, 1998, p. 288). Copyright Natalie Owl 2018 3/12/2018 10
Herman (1997) introduced the theory of complex PTSD for
individual responses to psychogenic trauma that includes
"a history of subjugation to totalitarian control over a
prolonged period [of time] (months to years)”and
examples of this include:
hostages, prisoners of war, concentration camp
survivors and survivors of some religious cults...those
subjected to totalitarian systems in sexual and
domestic life, including survivors of domestic
battering, childhood physical or sexual abuse and
organized sexual exploitation (p. 121).
Copyright Natalie Owl 2018 3/12/2018 11PTSD symptoms include: depression, hyper- vigilance, anxiety and possibly substance abuse PTSD, although similar in symptoms to HTT, is limited to a singular traumatic event with a 'beginning and an end' while HTT includes all of the historic trauma suffered by a people (Wesley-Esquimaux & Smolewski, 2004, p. 55). Copyright Natalie Owl 2018 3/12/2018 12
Historic Unresolved Grief (HUG) refers to the lack of traditional healing interventions that would have let Indigenous people resolve HTR with the result that the trauma manifested and was transmitted intergenerationally (Braveheart, 1998, p. 288; Braveheart & DeBruyn, 1998, p. 64; Braveheart, Chase, Elkins & Altschul, 2011, p. 283). Copyright Natalie Owl 2018 3/12/2018 13
Historical Trauma and Unresolved Grief Intervention (HUTG) is utilized to assist in resolving historic trauma (Brave Heart, 1998; Brave Heart, Chase, Elkins & Altschul, 2011). GOAL is to overcome HT and heal communities Copyright Natalie Owl 2018 3/12/2018 14
Grief Resolution Process for 45 Lakota human service providers. This included an assessment at 3 intervals, using a Lakota grief experience questionnaire and the semantic differential, and self- reported evaluation instrument and follow-up questionnaire (Yellow Horse Brave Heart, 1998) in Wesley-Esquimaux & Smolewski (2004) Copyright Natalie Owl 2018 3/12/2018 15
Brave Heart asserts that education about HT and HTR will create an awareness of the nature and scope of both as well as removing the personal stigma and blame that is associated with intergenerational HTR. This awareness will allow an opportunity to resolve the HTR through culturally appropriate healing methodologies that are specific for each particular individual and group (Braveheart, Chase, Elkins, & Altschul, 2011, 284). Copyright Natalie Owl 2018 3/12/2018 16
HTT theory stresses that it is the goal of each community to find their story, find their voice, 'decolonize their history', and understand how their history is similar to the history of all Aboriginal people, even to all oppressed people subject to genocide. HTT theory also emphasizes the importance of adapting and 're-working' healing methods to the individual and to the community (Brave Heart, Chase, Elkins & Altschul, 2011; Wesley-Esquimaux & Smolewski, 2004). Copyright Natalie Owl 2018 3/12/2018 17
Historical Loss Scale (HLS) which measures how often people think about historic trauma. Historical Loss and Associated Symptoms (HLAS) tool that measures 'emotional responses' to historic trauma (Braveheart Yellow Horse, Chase, Elkins, & Altschul, 2011,p. 284) Both tools were developed by Whitbeck, Adams, Hoyt, & Chen (2004). Ehlers, Gizer, Gilder, Ellingson, & Yehuda (2013) utilized these tools for 306 Indigenous participants (Brown-Rice, 2013) Copyright Natalie Owl 2018 3/12/2018 18
Biological or epigenetic (in hereditary predispositions to PTSD), Cultural (through story-telling, culturally sanctioned behaviours), Social (through inadequate parenting, lateral violence, acting out of abuse), Psychological (through memory processes) (Wesley-Esquimaux & Smolewski, 2004, p. 76). Copyright Natalie Owl 2018 3/12/2018 19
Brave Heart encourages and recommends further research in order to better resolve HT, specifically for other factors such as "continuing oppression" and "harsh day school experiences, and of the generational influence of parental and grandparental boarding school attendance on current experiences of child abuse, neglect, and psychosocial symptoms"(Brave Heart, 1998, p. 301; Brave Heart, Chase, Elkins & Altschul, 2011, p.287). Copyright Natalie Owl 2018 3/12/2018 20
It is recommended that there is a need to consider: "tribal cultural distinctiveness; “differing degrees of trauma exposure" There is a need to: assess HT as it affects the individual, the family and the community; identify areas of "strength and resilience" among those who endured HT (Brave Heart, Chase, Elkins & Altschul, 2011, p. 287). Copyright Natalie Owl 2018 3/12/2018 21
Sotero’s 2006 model and Brant Castellano & Archibald 2013 models Copyright Natalie Owl 2018 3/12/2018 22
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The Indigenous experience – “specific forms of cultural oppression and structural violence” are not “well captured by the analogy with the Holocaust or, indeed, other genocides” (Kirmayer, Gone, & Moses, 2014, p. 303) Pan-Indianism approach is not effective (Bombay, Matheson & Anisman, 2014) Mental health professionals may “construct Indigenous families as pathological, promote an oversimplified, universalizing understanding of Canadian colonialism, and divert attention from the contemporary continuation of colonial structures and relations” (Maxwell, 2014, p.407) Being a fairly new health concept, there is not a lot of empirical/quantitative data available to link health disparities to historic trauma (Sotero, 2006) Copyright Natalie Owl 2018 3/12/2018 29
Historic Trauma Historical Relations between Canada and First Nations Indian Residential School system including the Day School system and intergenerational effects Current Racism in Canada Ethnocentrism and Nishnaabemwin Copyright Natalie Owl 2018 3/12/2018 30
Effects of the Intergenerational Residential School Experience and Negative Racial Stereotyping on Ojibwe Speech Patterns in Mid-Northern Ontario Anishnawbek -Owl, 2016 Two groups: 1) did not attend IRS system and 2) attended IRS system with sub- groups; A) only attended day school; B) only attended residential school; C) attended both A four part questionnaire was developed that focused on: 1) 32 component Nishnaabemwin performance assessment; 2)personal background regarding the Indian Residential School; 3) personal views about negative racist stereotypes and 4) fluency. Interviews were conducted with 11 participants Copyright Natalie Owl 2018 3/12/2018 31
Participants 31.1 % of Sagamok Anishnawbek’s population reported an Aboriginal home language in 2011 Participants represented 0.36% of the total population (2,780) Median Age was 62 years old Oldest participant was 84 and the youngest was 42 3 males and 8 females participated Copyright Natalie Owl 2018 3/12/2018 32
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Sub-group C had the highest scores on the Nishnaabemwin performance assessment and also gave the most positive ratings for their IRS system experience. Group One had an average correctness of 24.4 out of 30 questions or 81.3%; Group Two had an average correctness of 26.6 out of 30 questions or 88.9%; Copyright Natalie Owl 2018 3/12/2018 35
Intergenerational Ojibwe language transmission appears to be the most significant effect of the IRS system as members from both Groups One and Two consciously and sub-consciously chose to not speak Ojibwe to their children The day school experience was ranked more negatively than the residential school experience. Copyright Natalie Owl 2018 3/12/2018 36
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Participants' Nishnaabemwin Revitalization Recommendations
Speak the language to the children and grandchildren (7 out of 11)
Teach the language at school (5 out of 11) [school is community based].
Adopt an Ojibwe language policy at all Band services (2 out of 11)
Learn the language (2 out of 11)
Utilize community speakers like Elders to help students learn (2 out of 11)
All of these ‘solutions’ are community based, demonstrating resilience, resistance,
self-determination
Copyright Natalie Owl 2018 3/12/2018 41Owl 2016-2018: Ongoing literature reviews on HT (ongoing oppression) in Indigenous Language Education (ILE)/Education Current research plans to help resolve HT through implementation of culturally appropriate methodologies thereby fostering more resilience in ILE and Indigenous communities. Copyright Natalie Owl 2018 3/12/2018 42
Considerations and Implications This is not the standard ‘deficit model’ that is often used in western society and academia ie. Mikkonen & Raphael (2010) Social Determinants of Health: The Canadian Facts HTT Theory aligns with Loppie Reading & Wien’s Social Determinant of Health model [The Integrated Life Course and Social Determinants Model of Aboriginal Health (ILCSDAH) ]who posit that colonialism as well as racism and social exclusion (distal determinants of health) negatively impacts Indigenous people although self- determination and cultural continuity (distal and intermediate determinants of health respectively), positively impact the health of Indigenous people. Advocates for more community-based approaches instead of ‘top-down’ models Cultural competency of researchers/educators required – ie. debriefing of self and community members Copyright Natalie Owl 2018 3/12/2018 43
Recommended Readings Cote-Meek, S. (2014). Colonized Classrooms: Racism, Trauma and Resistance in Post-Secondary Education. Halifax: Fernwood Publishing Crawford, A. (2014). “The trauma experienced by generations past having an effect in their descendants”: Narrative and historical trauma among Inuit in Nunavut, Canada. Copyright Natalie Owl 2018 3/12/2018 44
Our children are the ongoing prize in the cultural war that Canada declared against us over 150 years ago. Canada may believe that the war is over, but until the automatic weapons it created as part of that war have been taken from their hands or altered in fundamental ways, or disabled totally, the war continues of its own momentum. The child welfare system, the youth justice system and the educational system all function from the inherent fundamental belief that we as parents in our own communities do not have the right to birth, raise, educate, discipline and protect our children from Canada’s inherent racism. Canada believes fervently in the benevolence of its policies and fails to accept its own failings, because we are the faces of those failings. They treat us poorly because we are not like them, and they ignore our wounds and the deaths that result from their actions—past and present—because we are not like them. Copyright Natalie Owl 2018 3/12/2018 45
We are asked to help Canada do better—to be better—and we willingly accept that challenge because Canada must change. But the struggle to create the change that Canada must undergo will be resisted and it will be a constant repetition of “two steps forward, one step back,” or sometimes three. It will not be easy…Our children do not set out in life to fail. They want to be someone. We have to be the someones they want to be. We have to tell them about those of us who have come from the same ground they stand upon, who have the same kinds of community, parents and history that they have, and who look just like them, who are someone…No one escapes this world unhurt and unharmed. We will all be bruised at some point. But our traditions have sustained the warrior spirit inside us for thousands of years and they hold the key to our future. We will not survive by being better at the white man’s game than the white man. We will survive by being the best Anishinaabe we can be. – Senator Murray Sinclair, January, 2018 Copyright Natalie Owl 2018 3/12/2018 46
Bombay, A., Matheson, K., & Anisman, H. (2014). The intergenerational effects of Indian Residential Schools: Implications for the concept of historical trauma. Transcultural Psychiatry, 51. DOI: 10.1177/1363461513503380 Brant Castellano, M., & Archibald, L. (2013). Healing Historic Trauma: A Report From The Aboriginal Healing Foundation. In Moving forward, making a difference. Thompson Book. Retrieved http://apr.thompsonbooks.com/vols/APR_Vol_4Ch5.pdf Brave Heart, M. (1998). The return to the sacred path: Healing the historical trauma and historical unresolved grief response among the Lakota through a psychoeducational group intervention. (Doctoral Dissertation) Smith College Studies in Social Work, 68(3), 287-305. DOI:10.1080/00377319809517532 Brave Heart, M., & DeBruyn, L.M. (1998). The American Indian Holocaust: Healing Historical Unresolved Grief. American Indian and Alaska Native Mental Health Research, 8(2), 56. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/236003962?accountid=13480 Brave Heart, M., Chase, J., Elkins, J., & Altschul, B. (2011). Historical trauma among indigenous peoples of the Americas: Concepts, research, and clinical considerations. Journal of Psychoactive Drugs, 43(4), 282-290. doi:10.1080/02791072.2011.628913. Copyright Natalie Owl 2018 3/12/2018 47
Brown-Rice, K. (2013). Examining the Theory of Historical Trauma Among Native Americans. The Professional Counselor, (3(3), pp. 117-130. Retrieved from http://tpcjournal.nbcc.org Herman, J. (1997). Trauma and Recovery: The aftermath of violence-from domestic abuse to political terror. New York: BasicBooks. Kirmayer, L.J., Gone, J.P., & Moses, J. (2014). Rethinking Historical Trauma. Transcultural Psychiatry, 51. DOI: 10.1177/1363461514536358 Maxwell, K. (2014). Historicizing historical trauma theory: Troubling the trans- generational transmission paradigm. Transcultural Psychiatry, 51(3), pp. 407-435. DOI: 10.1177/1363461514531317 Sotero, M. (2006). A Conceptual Model of Historical Trauma: Implications for Public Health Practice and Research. Journal of Health Disparities Research and Practice, 1(1), pp 93-108. Wesley-Esquimaux, C.C., & Smolewski, M. (2004). Historic Trauma and Aboriginal Healing. Ottawa, Canada: Aboriginal Healing Foundation. Copyright Natalie Owl 2018 3/12/2018 48
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