David Edward Walker - Oppressive Mental Health Practices - For Native People, the Past is Present

David Edward Walker is the author of Coyote’s Swing: A Memoir and Critique of Mental Hygiene in Native America, which was published in February by Washington State University Press.
A psychologist, novelist, public speaker, poet, and singer-songwriter, Walker is a Missouri Cherokee descendent. For more than three decades he’s worked as a professor, psychotherapist, and consultant based in Washington State - including four years as a psychologist for the U.S. Indian Health Service (IHS) and, afterward, more than 20 consulting for the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation.
In much of his writing, including Coyote’s Swing, he addresses the devastating impact of the Western, biomedical mental health system on Indigenous peoples - and their experiences, across the centuries, of intergenerational oppression and trauma both personal and systemic. Five years ago, Walker wrote a series of articles for Indian Country Today that zeroed in on such oppressive practices, including the harms of psychiatric treatment on Native individuals and the history of labeling Native children with “feeblemindedness” and, later, ADHD.
He holds a doctorate in clinical psychology from the University of Detroit.
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[@stevekaylor5606]

Mental Health is the development of a mental + emotional dedication, a cathexis!

[@cherylmburton5577]

From 1:35-7:11 he speaks about an Indian folk legend story that is included in his book about the trap of the mental health system on Indigenous people of the US, but the application is educational to all people affected directly or indirectly by the mental health system worldwide.

[@rickp.6251]

🐛🕳️🦋

[@rickp.6251]

🐛 I wish this worm emoji was pointing the other way so I could make it go into the hole 🕳️ and then have a butterfly 🦋 come out the other side. This is deeply disturbing to me.