A Clever People: Indigenous healing traditions and Australian mental health futures

Abstract

Indigenous Australians are currently hospitalised for mental health disorders at significantly higher rates than members of the non-Indigenous population. In this context, the development of effective Indigenous mental health service delivery models in remote, rural and urban areas continues to be a national priority. Traditional forms of healing are fundamental to Indigenous societies across Australia. Anthropologists, linguists, psychiatrists, psychologists, psycho-analysists and Indigenous healers themselves have recorded and discussed many localised traditions of healing over the last 100 years. This paper presents an overview of this significant Australian heritage and proposes that the challenges which face mental health service delivery within many Indigenous communities may be addressed in part through the recognition of the intellectual, religious and therapeutic bases of Indigenous healing traditions.