Historic Trauma and Aboriginal Healing

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Chapter 3 Learned Helplessness Faced with inescapable situations, such as physical extermination, cultural genocide and colonial subjugation, individuals and groups often exhibit what social psychologists label “learned helplessness.” According to Peterson and Seligman (1984), this kind of behaviour occurs when an individual (or a group) perceives that his or her behaviour cannot control events and that no action on his or her part will control outcomes in the future. Moreover, if the traumatic experience should endure across time (in the Aboriginal context, through three major periods of colonization and four hundred years of epidemics) and should be applicable across settings (or areas of impact: physical, economic, cultural and social), then failure in the present should create generalized expectations for failure in the future. Eventually, via the learned helplessness phenomenon, the trauma enters into the psychological makeup of people. In consequence, even if a person finds herself or himself in a situation where she or he could act and react to outside pressures, she or he fails to make any attempt to do so. A person or a group becomes passive, inactive and hostile, ascribing social failures to personal, internal causes and blaming themselves for their helplessness (internal attribution). It is this internal attribution of failure that results in decreased self and social esteem. Peterson and Seligman (1984) also state that individual differences in how people typically account for negative events in their lives will affect how they will generalize the traumatic event to affect their subsequent behaviour. Thus, those people who typically draw upon global, stable and internal explanations for the undesirable things that happen to them are said to be vulnerable in the face of adversity to becoming depressed. The propensity to make these kinds of attributions for negative outcomes is labeled the “depressive attributional style.” Learned helplessness affects the following psychological processes: motivation (which becomes reduced as there are no incentives to try new coping responses, there is passivity and a lack of response initiation); cognition (with an inability to learn new responses to overcome prior learning that trauma is uncontrollable and cognitive representation of uncontrollability); and emotion (the helpless state resembles depression with feelings of worthlessness, guilt and thoughts of death or suicidal attempts). Socially learned helplessness may become a prerequisite for social invisibility: people unable or unwilling to act according to dominant social standards and passively (instead of actively) resisting assimilation. There are many examples from different parts of the colonized world that show acculturation (and a loss of the social self) is often associated with alcoholism, drug addiction, family disintegration and suicide. The dominant society perceives the passively aggressive group as socially undesirable, as “invisibleby-necessity” and, thus, as needing the knowing subject to represent it. Internal Versus External Locus of Control Learned helplessness causes people to ascribe social failures to personal internal causes and to blame themselves for their helplessness (I got sick because I deserved it; it is my fault that I got sick). On the other hand, in inescapable situations that are beyond one’s control, internal locus of control (or the perception of events as being a consequence of one’s own actions) becomes drastically reduced (My sickness is beyond my control; I cannot do anything about it). If levels of internal locus of control are diminished, levels of social motivation also diminish and an inability to initiate social behaviour increases (Rotter, 1966). The subjugated social and cultural group will experience a loss of the sense of self-sovereignty and may react with obedience, passivity and passive aggression. Gershaw (1989) compiled a list of 66
Chapter 3 characteristics more typical of people with internal locus of control who believe that they control their own destiny versus “externals,” or people who believe that their lives are determined by forces outside themselves. Internals • After experiencing success in a task, internals are likely to raise their behavioural goals. • After failing a task, internals re-evaluate future performances and lower their expectations of success. • More likely to prefer games based on skill. Externals • More likely to lower their goals. • After failure, externals raise their expectations. • Prefer games based on chance or luck. • More likely to work for achievements, to tolerate delays in rewards and to plan for longterm goals. • Better able to resist coercion. • More likely to learn about their surroundings and learn from their past experiences. • Find solving their own bouts of depression easier. • Likewise, they are less prone to learned helplessness and serious depression. • Better at tolerating ambiguous situations. • Less willing to take risks. • More willing to work on self-improvement and better themselves through remedial work. • Derive greater benefits from social supports. • Make better mental health recovery in the longterm adjustment to physical disability. 67
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Historic Trauma and Aboriginal Heal
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Table of Contents Historic Trauma a
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Table of Contents Definitions------
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Definitions This glossary of terms
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Executive Summary This study propos
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Introduction [A] healing ritual cha
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Introduction This concept involves
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Introduction of war and disease los
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Introduction Once the physical make
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Introduction Many historical facts
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Chapter 1 Historical Background Eur
Page 23 and 24:
Chapter 1 In addition, once the Ind
Page 25 and 26: Chapter 1 patients who broke out in
Page 27 and 28: Chapter 1 From the earliest epidemi
Page 29 and 30: Chapter 1 also more than likely tha
Page 31 and 32: Chapter 1 and the lives of about 30
Page 33 and 34: Chapter 1 beliefs would have been w
Page 35 and 36: Chapter 1 journals that could be re
Page 37 and 38: Chapter 1 The European continent ex
Page 39 and 40: Chapter 2 Analyzing the Trauma In t
Page 41 and 42: Chapter 2 Soon after contact with t
Page 43 and 44: Chapter 2 Early Period - Cultural T
Page 45 and 46: Chapter 2 For many decades, researc
Page 47 and 48: Chapter 2 Soon, it became apparent
Page 49 and 50: Chapter 2 the Grandmothers, the Mot
Page 51 and 52: Chapter 2 Acculturation is more tha
Page 53 and 54: Chapter 2 Hurons” (Trigger, 1985:
Page 55 and 56: Chapter 2 people (and people versus
Page 57 and 58: Chapter 2 transgression; [and becam
Page 59 and 60: Chapter 2 There is often the feelin
Page 61 and 62: Chapter 2 There are many consequenc
Page 63 and 64: Chapter 2 repetition of traumatic e
Page 65 and 66: Chapter 2 of operating: power throu
Page 67 and 68: Chapter 2 White Russians and Ukrain
Page 69 and 70: Chapter 2 native people in western
Page 71 and 72: Chapter 2 In many parts of Australi
Page 73 and 74: Chapter 2 In 1975 through to 1979,
Page 75: Chapter 3 A New Model: Historic Tra
Page 79 and 80: Chapter 3 It is reasonable to think
Page 81 and 82: Chapter 3 available. Consequently,
Page 83 and 84: Chapter 3 contain some kind of seco
Page 85 and 86: Chapter 3 of traumatic memories and
Page 87 and 88: Chapter 3 Implications for Healing:
Page 89 and 90: Chapter 3 life (van der Kolk, van d
Page 91 and 92: Chapter 3 a result of contact with
Page 93 and 94: Chapter 3 and memory on to next gen
Page 95 and 96: Chapter 4 The Elders Speak Today, s
Page 97 and 98: Chapter 4 [T]he basic purpose is fo
Page 99 and 100: Chapter 4 information in my DNA Str
Page 101 and 102: Chapter 4 Further, the spiritual or
Page 103 and 104: Chapter 4 Lee, who is of Cree ances
Page 105 and 106: Appendix 1: Complex Post-Traumatic
Page 107 and 108: References Aboriginal Healing Found
Page 109 and 110: References Buchbinder, G. (1977). E
Page 111 and 112: References Elder, B. (1988). Blood
Page 113 and 114: References Hocking, B. (1993). Abor
Page 115 and 116: References McCormick, Rod (1997). H
Page 117 and 118: References Rotter, J.B. (1966). Gen
Page 119 and 120: References van der Kolk, B.A., O. v
Page 121: Aboriginal Healing Foundation 75 Al
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