7. North America

• Published in: Transcultural Psychiatric Research Review
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: SAGE Publications 1972
• Subjects: General Medicine; Ferguson; Indian; Pacific; eskimo*
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/136346157200900120; http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/136346157200900120

A growing number of publications tend to show that various primitive customs and rituals have considerable therapeutic effects and that occidental psychia trists should combine their treatment with indigenous procedures. Such is the case of W. G. JILEK and L. JILEK-AALL'S paper on Canadian Salish Indians' winter spirit ceremonials. The two following papers are devoted to problems of drinking among American Indians. The first, by J. H. SHORE and B. VON FUMETTI, compares three Indian alcohol treatment programs, and the second, by F. N. FERGUSON, presents an outline of the Community Treatment Plan for Navaho Problem Drinkers, together with some hypotheses concerning the relative effectiveness of treatment. Two papers, one by J. H. SHORE, the other by J. H. SHORE, J. F. BOPP, T. R. WALLER, and J. W. DAWES, are devoted to a description of suicide and suicide-attempt rates among American Indians of the Pacific Northwest. The development of a tribally sponsored Suicide Prevention Center is also described. Suicide is the subject of another paper by R. KRAUS, who describes the changing patterns of suicidal behavior among the North Alaskan Eskimo. This section ends with a paper by J. FISCHER, who challenges the belief that Negroes in the United States have a higher frequency of mental illness than whites have. Evidence is quoted to support the author's view, and a criticism of the medical model in epidemiological research is presented. Questions for future research on this issue are also proposed.