Chapter2009

Locating the Ecocentric Self: Inuit Concepts of Mental Health and Illness

Laurence J. Kirmayer · Christopher M. Fletcher

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Indigenous Health, Education, and Rights Indigenous Studies and Ecology Cultural, Psychoanalytic, and Sociopolitical Reflections

Abstract

In this chapter, we present some reflections on Inuit concepts of mental health based on ethnographic research and clinical consultations in Nunavik, Quebec. Our aim is to identify cultural knowledge and practices relevant to mental health services, promotion, and planning. At the same time, we hope to show how contemporary knowledge of mental health and illness is a complex and shifting outcome of cultural models of affliction, familiarity with a variety of contemporary forms of counselling and healing practices, popular theories spread through mass media, and the exigencies of a rapidly changing way of life. More than 50,000 people in Canada identify themselves as Inuit (Statistics Canada 2008). Most live above the 50th parallel in the territories of Nunavut and Nunavik (northern Quebec), although increasing numbers make their lives in the major cities of Canada (see Figure 13.1). The Inuit have been among the most intensively studied peoples in the world since their long history of survival in the stark environment of the Arctic has captured the imagination of explorers and anthropologists. In recent years, with increasing control over their land and systematic efforts to record their history and traditional knowledge, Inuit across Canada have become concerned with how to maintain or recuperate the vital elements and values of their tradition while advancing the well-being of their people as equal citizens within a modern multicultural nation. This challenge is especially acute because of the recency and intensity of cultural, social, and economic change in Inuit communities, which has led to radical disjunctures between the experience of the generations (Brody 1975). Many Elders in the communities

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References

1996Inventing our Selves 2007Psychotherapy and the Cultural Concept of the Person 1998Inuit morality play: the emotional education of a three-year-old 1994Tammarniit (Mistakes): Inuit relocation in the Eastern Arctic, 1939-63 2004Revenge of the Windigo: The Construction of the Mind and Mental Health of North American Aboriginal Peoples 1995Eskimo Essays: Yup'ik Lives and How We See Them

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