By Anne O'Callaghan
SYDNEY - "Over 200 years of oppression, racism, dispossession and incarceration have created the state of the mental health of Aboriginal people today. The psychiatric profession does not own the mental health of our people. Aboriginal people own it. We must move from a narrow medical model to one which allows Aboriginal perspectives to develop and which gives us community control."
So said Liz Haydon, WA Department of Health senior project officer with the Aboriginal Programs Section of the Community Psychiatric Support Service. It was a sentiment which reverberated throughout the halls of the National Aboriginal Mental Health Conference, hosted by the Redfern Aboriginal Medical Service Cooperative and held at Sydney University November 25-27.
The conference theme of "Our Way" set the framework of discussion for the 800 participants, both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal, of both professional and non-professional backgrounds. From the outset, the discussion of Aboriginal mental health was placed squarely in the context of the oppression and injustice suffered by Aboriginal people on every level and in every sphere.
"Should we be looking at the symptoms or the causes?", asked Paul Coe, barrister and chairperson of the Aboriginal Legal Service. "Who sets the parameters for the debate? The Royal Commission into Black Deaths in Custody specifically excluded inquest into those black deaths which occurred in mental institutions.
"Aboriginal people have suffered a severe loss of identity and security since the white invasion in 1788. Yet what does Mabo achieve? It is the continuation today of the paternalism of the past. It's about talking about us but not with us. Paul Keating has wiped out the rights of our entire race of people in less than three months."
Access to available resources and the relationship between the mental health bureaucracy and community workers was a recurring theme. "Danny" was an 18-year-old man who should have had the world at his feet. Instead, his depression was so debilitating that he was unable to raise his head to look anyone in the eyes.
But his was not a case of mental illness, says Liz Haydon, but rather a loss of incentive for life and living. And it was not drugs which were called for but a place of rehabilitation and care. Such a place does not exist, and Danny was put on monthly drugs to begin the mental health patient cycle. "Where do all the resources go? Who makes the decisions? It's like they're tightly contained in a balloon that keeps passing overhead and we have to find the ways to puncture it so that the resources can come down to the ground where they are so desperately needed."
Cultural awareness training for non-Aboriginal workers in the field was seen essential. Vicki Stanton works in the Shoalhaven Mental Health Service and is very aware of the fact that the mental health industry reinforces white social values of health and mental illness. "Many of the professional white staff are dinosaurs who believe fervently in their training of years ago. These 'experts' have little potential for absorbing changes.
"Yet mental health is a social construction, and that requires that we look at the social context of the treatment. For example, we have to consider family and community involvement in treatment because that is very important in Aboriginal value systems."
Rex Marshall is an enrolled nurse in mental health. He was awarded an Order of Australia Medal in 1989 for his services to Aboriginal people. "Aboriginal mental health", he said, "has been neglected and rejected by those in power for far too long. There is a need for more Aboriginal mental health workers and care centres, and houses need to be set up for our mentally sick Aboriginal brothers and sisters with support coming from the white mental health professionals.
"There must be mental health awareness programs and resource materials to promote and support our mentally sick Aboriginals. When these goals are achieved in Aboriginal mental health then the grieving and mourning period of 205 years will be part of the healing process towards a better black and white relationship in Australia."