8. North America

• Published in: Transcultural Psychiatric Research Review
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: SAGE Publications 1971
• Subjects: General Medicine; Boyer; Indian; eskimo*; Alaska
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/136346157100800132; http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/136346157100800132

Using the psychoanalytic model of psychic structure, L. B. and R. M. BOYER describe some effects of acculturation in relation to aggressive drives among the Apaches of the Mescalero Reservation. The second review of this section summarizes three different papers on suicide among the American Indians. Surprising variations are found in the age distribution of Indian suicide as well as between different tribes. Clues for explanatory factors are suggested in each paper. One was edited by the Public Health Service, Washington, D.C., and the two others, by L. H. DIZMANG, J. WATSON, and P. A. MAY, and by H. L. P. RESNIK and L. H. DIZMANG respectively, were presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Psychiatric Association held in San Francisco, California in May 1970. Suicide among American Indians is the subject of another study by J. T. BARTER and K. M. WEIST. These authors present a brief analysis of different patterns of suicidal behavior in relation to changes which have occurred in the Cheyenne culture. D. F. SANDNER describes some healing techniques and attitudes of 15 Navaho medicine men and concludes that their curing method should be considered as a sample of symbolic psycho therapy. This section closes with a study by J. D. BLOOM, who presents some findings on a group of 105 Eskimos and Indians who where referred to a mental health unit in Alaska.