Associate Professor Pat Dudgeon Chairwoman of the Australian Indigenous Psychologists Association:
Aboriginal people prefer to view mental health and mental illness under the umbrella of the borader concept of social and emotional wellbeing just one part of a more holistic view of health.
Any strategies to improve the social and emotional wellbeing of Aboriginal people and communities need to support their collective and individual self-determination on the path to recovery and healing from the effect of trauma grief loss discrimiation and human rights violations.
Illness-focused approaches tend to overlook sources of resilience and recovery found within one of the oldest continuous living cultures in history.
Cultural concepts such as connection to land culture spirituality ancestry family and community have been identifed as protective factors that can help to moderate the effect of stressful circumstances at individual family and community level. Such concepts should be an integral part of preventive health strategies. [Something all of us can learn from]