The Politics of Neuromania: A Report from Yakama Territory‏‏

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

A number of things contributed to my fascination with the charlatan aspects of the psychiatric profession. One of them was a movie adaptation of a novel by Ken Kesey. The hero in Kesey's book is a quiet Native American giant from the Pacific Northwest where his family had been deprived of its traditional salmon fishing livelihood by the construction of a hydroelectric power generation facility. Later in life I encountered the work of Sherman Alexie, a Native American from the same region and a real life member of the kind of family described by Kesey. In one of his works, Alexie commented that hippies were Native wannabes. Kesey could be considered the founder of hippie drug culture. (Alexie has admitted to being a psychiatric patient.)

That literary background gave me context for the report of David Walker about his work as a clinical psychologist in Yakama territory within the state of Washington (see the link below). In his interview with Will Hall, Walker describes some of the difficulties that Natives face as they interact with the institutions of modern America. Young Natives have some difficulty assimilating to the alien culture that surrounds their domain. The school system is poorly adapted to Native traditions. Walker describes an experimental program of educational rehabilitation for disaffected Native youth that he worked on. It employed teaching methods that had been modified from Western approaches in order to better engage young Natives. More respect was paid to the Native language and culture, for example.

Where the clinical work of Walker intersects with the literature of Sherman Alexie is in the way Natives often fall into the pit of substance addiction. Walker contends that Western culture bears significant responsibility in that area. There is a long history of trade in alcohol with Natives that has a tinge of predation about it. Thomas Jefferson even advocated a policy that used liquor debt as a way to obtain territory from Native people. Walker describes a rational framework for substance dependency that rejects the blame-the-genes theme. He even affirms the history of the bad gene theory of generational addiction as an offshoot of the eugenics movement.

Walker has a healthy skepticism for the medical model. He favors an approach to suffering that maintains the dignity of the sufferer. He prefers not to treat the people he assists as if they were lab animals and/or inherently defective. This approach could get him into hot water with those who favor the medical model. He could be characterized as denying services to his clients by helping them without getting them addicted to drugs. Any success he achieves with clients could be portrayed as "unscientific" aberrations.

What do you think of the efforts of David Walker? Do you see him as a help or a harm to people living in Yakama territory? Do you buy into the notion that Yakama youth are depressed because of a chemical imbalance, or do you suspect that social and political marginalization has something to do with it?

Links: Ken Kesey's fictitious portrayal of oppressive "medical" treatment. A collection of Sherman Alexie's literature. Will Hall's interview with David Walker.

Comments

[luvdovz.livejournal.com]

Yep.

[luzribeiro.livejournal.com]

Gratitude for your enormously insightful input.

[oportet.livejournal.com]

He has an impressive resumé. (http://www.tessasdance.com/uploads/3/1/9/5/3195712/cv-resume_2013-for_the_web.pdf) If you have credintials like that, and the pinnacle of your career is 'shrink to the Yakamas', I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and say your intentions are pure.

I suspect the latter.

[aviv-b.livejournal.com]

Do you buy into the notion that Yakama youth are depressed because of a chemical imbalance, or do you suspect that social and political marginalization has something to do with it?

I think its probably a bit of of both. As for Sherman Alexie, there is no reason to be coy. He has been very open about his struggles with being bi-polar and apparently he finds medication helpful. In fact at a book reading he was at recently (that I attended), he discussed the link between creativity and what we identify as mental illness. He stated that in a manic state he could write endlessly but that it made a mess of the rest of his life. And he went on to say that he was on medication and that he would be fine with never writing again if that was the trade off for having mood stability. He's a grown adult and perfectly capable of making his own decisions. I think we should respect the treatment choices that other people make in order to have what they value in life, and not impose our own views on them.