Customer Reviews

Native American Postcolonial Psychology

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3 star:		(1)
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This book gives a brilliant insight into the issues that Native Americans are facing as a colonialized people. I don't believe America as a whole has come to the realization of just what it did to the indigenous people and the traumatizing effect the American Dream has had on the original inhabitants. To make matters worse, these people are normally treated by individuals that only come from the Newtonian-Descartian worldview of present day mainstream psychology. When treating people from another cultural background, you need to take into account WHERE they are coming from, and what their worldview are. To not do so, is just to continue the cultural genocide that has been going on for far too long. A highly recommendable book.

This excellent publication provides a theoretical framework for anyone interested in working with American Indians. Duran and Duran have identified the condition of inter-generational trauma and grief that permiates our American Indian families. Anyone serving First Nations Peoples must read this book!

The authors have been able to finally delineate some of the issues facing the Aboriginal community the world over. Never before has addiction been addressed in the manner we see here in the "Spirit of Alcohol" chapter. Finally, this entity called alcohol (addiction) has been named and allows for the reader to establish a relationship with it that helps in the addictive process.

As if this wasn't enough, the author has recently published "Buddha in Redface" which is similar material put into story form. The story is compelling and captivating. These two works complement each other. Must reading for anyone in the counseling, field or for those interested in looking beneath the surface.

It's been many years since the first time I read this book, it was, and remains, a very powerful and very relevant analysis of anger turned inward in the Native American community. It is, nevertheless, a work that confronts a very sensitive issue in the United States of America - the impact on current generations of genocidal colonization practices against long-established Native American communities by European colonizers. Do not read this book if you believe the Americas were pristine, unpopulated lands waiting to be "discovered" by Columbus, or Erikson, or any other European. Do read this book if you want to understand why other colonized cultures have turned to violence and dogma to seek revenge for the foreign imposition of arbitrary and intentionally destructive rulerships.

This is one of the best books that I have ever read. I see it as basic material for any counselor or therapist. While the focus is on Native Americans, it is relevant for work with clients of all cultures. The discussion of intergenerational trauma and the soul wound is particularly well done. Highly readable and it can change the way you practice. Profound!

This is an easy read text, organized well for quick reference and very helpful in counseling.

Excellent book, those written more recently have different agenda, but this book was excellent in terms of creating a way to understand issues specific to Native people and counseling.

The author claims that "it is necessary to understand inter-generational trauma and internalized oppression in order to understand Native Americans today".

Well, that is painting with a very wide brush. American Indians are all different from one another, and all need to be approached as individuals, either in therapy, or normal everyday social situations. I understand the problems of alcohol abuse in American Indian society, as my Indian mother's priority was alcohol and child abuse when I was growing up. I have watched many of my Indian friends drink and drug themselves to death. But what the author seems to totally miss is the effect of the victim mythologies that are handed down from generation to generation. "Internalized oppression" to often is nothing more than a clinging to victim mythologies that drown a person in destructive self-pity, and make him hate the reflection he sees in the mirror. His description of inter-generational trauma is far from the full story when considering what dysfunctional Indians hand down to their children. When a people cannot get off of the self-pity wagon and deal with life as it is, the bottle and drugs become a balm for that destructive self-pity. Yes, our ancestors did suffer many wrongs, but we also inflicted many wrongs on the European immigrants: that story always seems to be left out of the picture. The real destructive force was the spread of viruses. Nature did that. If not for the lack of immunity to viruses, the story today might well be very different. You cannot blame viruses on Europe, they are their own little creatures and do not care which host they infect. Indians -- those who's heads are full of victim mythologies -- need to deal with those simple truths.

I don't think for one second that dragging Indian people backwards into the land of spirits and fairy tales is a responsible way to offer treatment for the ills that confront us today. Dealing with today, in a rational and scientifically honest manner, rather than in spirits and ghosts, would seem a more responsible approach. The author states: "It makes Native American ways of conceptualizing the world available to readers." The problem itself is the way American Indians conceptualize the world around them. Many see themselves as a living, continuing legacy of victim-hood. When in fact, they themselves refuse to get up out of that crap and do the hard work of personal transformation that will make their lives compatible with the world around them. You cannot live in the stone-age, with stone-age beliefs, and expect to be able to navigate the 21st century with the same success as much of the rest of the worlds population.

"This book presents a theoretical discussion of problems and issues encountered in the Native American community from a perspective that accepts Native knowledge as legitimate."

And that is a huge problem with this approach, because not all "Native knowledge" is anywhere near correct. Often times "Native knowledge" is the core of the problem, because so much of Native knowledge revolves around historic half-truths, one-sided victim mythologies, and a disregard for scientific truths. You cannot cure the ills by reinforcing or inflicting even more of them on a person.

"Native American cosmology and metaphor are used extensively in order to deal with specific problems such as alcoholism, suicide, family, and community problems."

There is nothing wrong with honoring our cultural past, and our past beliefs; but using the idea of spirits to describe alcohol and drugs -- calling them spirits instead of dealing with what they really are, is just adding more mythology to a problem that needs to be faced with honest reality.

I don't agree with the author's approach to dealing with the realities facing American Indians. How can you deal with these realities with fairy tales and stone-age beliefs? It smacks of Christian Faith Healing, and I think it should be re-thought. Equipping people to deal with today should be the goal, not relying on stone-age gibberish.