The Blackfeet Indian culture camp: Auditioning an alternative indigenous treatment for substance use disorders.

Joseph P. Gone · Patrick E. Calf Looking

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Indigenous Health, Education, and Rights Substance Abuse Treatment and Outcomes Indigenous and Place-Based Education

Abstract

American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) communities experience alarming health disparities, including high rates of substance use disorders (SUDs). Psychological services for AIANs, including SUDs treatment, are primarily funded by the federal Indian Health Service and typically administered by tribal governments. Tribal administration of SUDs treatment programs has routinely involved either inclusion of traditional cultural practices into program activities or adaptation of conventional treatment approaches to distinctive community sensibilities. In this article, we investigate a third possibility: the collaborative, community-based development of an alternative indigenous intervention that was implemented as a form of SUDs treatment in its own right and on its own terms. Specifically, in July of 2012, we undertook a trial implementation of a seasonal cultural immersion camp based on traditional Pikuni Blackfeet Indian cultural practices for 4 male clients from the reservation's federally funded SUDs treatment program. Given a variety of logistical and methodological constraints, the pilot offering of the culture camp primarily served as a demonstration of "proof of concept" for this alternative indigenous intervention. In presenting and reflecting on this effort, we consider many challenges associated with alternative indigenous treatment models, especially those associated with formal outcome evaluation. Indeed, we suggest that the motivation for developing local indigenous alternatives for AIAN SUDs treatment may work at cross-purposes to the rigorous assessment of therapeutic efficacy for such interventions. Nevertheless, we conclude that these efforts afford ample opportunities for expanding the existing knowledge base concerning the delivery of community-based psychological services for AIANs.

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References

2014Meditation Programs for Psychological Stress and Well-being 1995Native American postcolonial psychology 2010Issues and Challenges in the Design of Culturally Adapted Evidence-Based Interventions 2008Complex interventions or complex systems? Implications for health economic evaluation 2013Redressing First Nations historical trauma: Theorizing mechanisms for indigenous culture as mental health treatment 2012American Indian and Alaska Native Mental Health: Diverse Perspectives on Enduring Disparities 2006The Persistence of American Indian Health Disparities 2005Prevalence of DSM-IV Disorders and Attendant Help-Seeking in 2 American Indian Reservation Populations

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2016Challenges and Innovations in a Community-Based Participatory Randomized Controlled Trial 2022What are the best practices for psychotherapy with indigenous peoples in the United States and Canada? A thorny question.2023Indigenous Historical Trauma: Alter-Native Explanations for Mental Health Inequities 2023Community Mental Health Services for American Indians and Alaska Natives: Reconciling Evidence-Based Practice and Alter-Native Psy-ence

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