The Indigenous peoples of North America are heirs to the shattering legacy of European colonization. These brutal histories of land dispossession, military conquest, forced settlement, religious repression, and coercive assimilation have robbed American Indian communities of their economies, lifeways, and sources of meaning and significance in the world. The predictable consequence has been an epidemic of “mental health” problems such as demoralization, substance abuse, violence, and suicide within these communities. One apparent solution would seem to be the initiation or expansion of mental health services to better reach American Indian clients. And yet, conventional mental health services such as counseling and psychotherapy depend on assumptions and aspirations that may not fit well with American Indian cultural sensibilities. For example, counseling practices draw on the presumed value for clients of introspective and expressive “self talk,” whereas Indigenous community norms may emphasize communicative caution outside of interactions with intimate kin, leading to marked reticence rather than candid disclosure. Moreover, given community sensitivities to salient histories of colonization, such differences have the potential to further alienate American Indian community members from the very services and providers designated to help them. In this article, I review a postcolonial predicament that bedevils American Indian community mental health services and trace a program of research that has sought to harness American Indian cultural and spiritual traditions for reimagining helping services in a manner that truly centers Indigenous perspectives.

中文翻译：

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重新构想美洲印第安人社区的心理健康服务：以土著观点为中心

北美的土著人民是欧洲殖民化的破坏性遗产的继承人。这些土地剥夺、军事征服、强制定居、宗教镇压和强制同化的残酷历史剥夺了美洲印第安人社区的经济、生活方式以及世界意义和意义的来源。可预见的后果是“心理健康”问题的流行，例如这些社区内的士气低落、药物滥用、暴力和自杀。一个明显的解决方案似乎是启动或扩大心理健康服务，以更好地接触美洲印第安人客户。然而，咨询和心理治疗等传统的心理健康服务依赖于可能与美洲印第安人文化敏感性不相符的假设和愿望。例如，咨询实践借鉴了内省和表达的“自我对话”对客户的假定价值，而土著社区规范可能会强调与亲密亲属互动之外的交流谨慎，导致明显的沉默而不是坦率的披露。此外，鉴于社区对殖民历史的敏感性，这种差异有可能进一步疏远美洲印第安人社区成员与指定帮助他们的服务和提供者之间的距离。在本文中，我回顾了困扰美洲印第安人社区心理健康服务的后殖民困境，并追溯了一项研究计划，该计划旨在利用美洲印第安人的文化和精神传统，以真正以土著观点为中心的方式重新构想帮助服务。