DP9-Aboriginal-Spirituality

individual in a self-focusing way’ (Bolton 1994:166-8). As discussed elsewhere in this discussion paper, this is most
difficult for a colonised minority Indigenous population in a predominantly settler colonial society. For example,
there is much evidence of the negative impacts on Aboriginal mental health from the stresses of carrying ‘the
burden of disregard’ (Sheehan 2001) in a nation state that is reluctant to accept the fact of a surviving Aboriginal
population with viable and valuable philosophies and ways of living.
In Australia Aboriginal people continually have to defend their culture and authenticity. Macdonald (1986, 1996,
1998b), working with Wiradjuri people in central New South Wales, has demonstrated over many years the
continuing, if changing, importance of kin and country in south-eastern Australia. She has argued that the refusal
to ‘allow’ Aboriginal people to change, locking them into a past-oriented traditionality (Macdonald 1998a, 2001,
2007), similarly results in an underestimation of their ongoing understandings of selves and country, of sharing
and caring, and of the consciousness of cultural difference captured by the term ‘the Koori way’ (Macdonald
2000). In refuting the idea that culture is ‘lost’ when it changes, she has been able to acknowledge the centrality
of spiritual awareness in many Wiradjuri people’s lives, notwithstanding changes in their social and material lives
(Macdonald 1996, 2008b). She is conducting analyses of how the impacts of government policy actually prevent
Aboriginal people from living according to their own spiritually, socially oriented values and understandings.
She is documenting how much cultural stress this puts people through (Macdonald 2000, 2004, 2008a).
Colonialism creates a situation where the introduced philosophies and methodologies of heath have primacy,
as the normative position, and this can lead to the defining and categorisation of that which is new to Western
epidemiology (though not new to Aboriginal practitioners and communities)—and not yet understood—as
abhorrent. Van Gent (2003) establishes that conceptions of health and dis-ease develop over time and are not fixed
or unchanging. David Biernoff takes issue with those psychiatrists who claim to have discovered that Aboriginal
communities contain many individuals manifesting mental illness. He suggests that these psychiatrists are making
judgments based on their own society’s behaviour patterns and fail to understand the Aboriginal framework
of social relations and social control (Biernoff 1982). Phillips has found that Western systems of diagnostic and
treatment practices are normative and, in fact, may be retrogressive to the health and wellbeing of Aboriginal
communities. Local Aboriginal solutions to local Aboriginal problems are not valued by bureaucratic health
systems, which tend to apply policies such as harm reduction in substance use, which Phillips has assessed as
being an accessory to self-inflicted destruction (Phillips 2001).
Practitioners are increasingly developing approaches to Aboriginal mental health and social adjustment that take
into account the impacts of colonisation on the spiritual essence of the people, and that utilise methodologies
which attempt to address the spiritual needs of individuals in their recovery. These practitioners include
psychologists, community developers, social workers, doctors, social and emotional wellbeing practitioners
and substance misuse workers, some of whom have written about their experiences, beliefs and research. It
is difficult to give this group of writings as a whole the title of research; there is some research in the sense of
academic research protocols among this body of work. Evaluation and review to develop the effectiveness of
different counselling approaches was an explicit recommendation of the Ways Forward report (Swan & Raphael
1995) but no focused research of this nature has been able to be sourced for this literature review. Practitioners
themselves often cite the lack of a research base in this area (Phillips 2001, 2003; Westerman 2004). McLennan
found that the literature does not provide detail as to the interplay of Spirituality and wellbeing, but tends to
either (a) fail to establish the relationship, or (b) lack advocacy for tangible ways in which Spirituality as a possible
dimension in wellbeing can be incorporated in Aboriginal health promotion practices (McLennan 2003a:32).
Practitioner approaches to Spirituality
A range of 15 practitioners’ writings, which are representative of approaches to the application of Spirituality
in social and emotional wellbeing practice, has been analysed in terms of definitions of wellbeing, Spirituality,
the therapy they work with (if any), their client base and their findings or results of their work or research. These
practitioners’ writings include: Armstrong 2002; Atkinson 1997, 1997a, 2002; Atkinson & Ober 1995; Briskman 2007;
Carroll 1998; Dudgeon & Williams 2000; Grant 2004; McLennan 2003a, 2003b, 2003c; McLennan & Khavarpour
2004; NPYWCAC 2003; Phillips 2001, 2003; Roe 2000; Swan & Raphael 1995; Tse et al. 2005; Wanganeen 1994,
2001; Westerman 2004; Vicary & Westerman 2004.
Many practitioners underline the importance of Aboriginal Spirituality in dealing with Aboriginal people who
have health issues (Armstrong 2002), substance misuse issues (Phillips 2001, 2003; Locke 1995; Carroll 1998; Roe
2000), mental health issues (Wanganeen 1994, 2001; Dudgeon, Garvey & Pickett 2000; McLennan 2003a, 2003b,
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