I really enjoyed this article. It made a big impression on me.
For the key paragraph of the whole article is:
“We had a lot of trouble with western mental health workers who came here immediately after the genocide and we had to ask some of them to leave. They came and their practice did not involve being outside in the sun where you begin to feel better. There was no music or drumming to get your blood flowing again. There was no sense that everyone had taken the day off so that the entire community could come together to try to lift you up and bring you back to joy. There was no acknowledgement of the depression as something invasive and external that could actually be cast out again. Instead they would take people one at a time into these dingy little rooms and have them sit around for an hour or so and talk about bad things that had happened to them. We had to ask them to leave."
~A Rwandan talking to a western writer, Andrew Solomon, about his experience with western mental health and depression. From The Moth podcast, 'Notes on an Exorcism'.
http://themoth.org/posts/stories/notes-on-an-exorcismhttp://themoth.org/stories
Why was so transformative me? I have been to talk therapy many times: once my parents put me in therapy as a teenager, twice in graduate school trying two different therapists in my 3 year tenure, a few sessions with my husband in my thirties, and twice as a woman in my 40s. Accept for one special therapist in graduate school where I had two sessions at a time of huge crisis I never felt like therapy was working. Now I have words why. The environment was sterile, forced, controlled and did not bring me joy. I thank this article for bringing me language to express what I could not express before.
Yoga is my therapy now. Maybe it is not the modality for everyone but for me it has been a game changer in my life.
This statement is also very important from the article.
“western mental health workers,” however well-intentioned, are not significantly different from the “Christian missionaries” who beheld “the white man’s burden” in Africa and attempted to “enlighten” them into Western ways. Less generously, it’s a form of cultural imperialism based on a spurious notion of Western cultural superiority that can be seen in every area of our culture.”
We have to be careful that we are not coming from a place of imperialism and privilege when we reach out to help individuals or communities. I even I (especially I) have to check myself with my volunteer work with at risk youth and Latino elders. A higher degree doesn’t mean I/we have the answers and know what’s right for everyone. Expensive education and/or skin color doesn’t justify paternalism.
As I understand it, research is moving toward explaining that trauma does not store in the pre-frontal cortex which is the verbal part of the brain. This explains why movement modalities that do not deal with language are so effective in treating depression. Bessel Van der Kolk author of The Body Keeps the Score will not treat patients with talk therapy unless they are doing yoga or some other form of contemplative movement. I believe this too. I believe in the healing power of the body. Everything we need is already within us. Let’s move!!!!!!!!!!!!! Let’s get outside! Let’s heal in community!
In addition, I related to this statement:
“. . . you can only get Obamacare for western mental health care; they don’t cover “body workers” such as cranial sacral, chiropractors, and masseuses, who have done more good for me personally (and many others) than pharmaceuticals have.”
I come against this all the time as a Yoga Therapist. People want to be able to bill my care to insurance but they can’t. I often think of getting a degree in Social work or Marriage and Family Therapy so I can bill my yoga services. Why with so much evidence behind these non-western modalities can we not change the paradigm and cover these services?
For the key paragraph of the whole article is:
“We had a lot of trouble with western mental health workers who came here immediately after the genocide and we had to ask some of them to leave. They came and their practice did not involve being outside in the sun where you begin to feel better. There was no music or drumming to get your blood flowing again. There was no sense that everyone had taken the day off so that the entire community could come together to try to lift you up and bring you back to joy. There was no acknowledgement of the depression as something invasive and external that could actually be cast out again. Instead they would take people one at a time into these dingy little rooms and have them sit around for an hour or so and talk about bad things that had happened to them. We had to ask them to leave."
~A Rwandan talking to a western writer, Andrew Solomon, about his experience with western mental health and depression. From The Moth podcast, 'Notes on an Exorcism'.
http://themoth.org/posts/stories/notes-on-an-exorcismhttp://themoth.org/stories
Why was so transformative me? I have been to talk therapy many times: once my parents put me in therapy as a teenager, twice in graduate school trying two different therapists in my 3 year tenure, a few sessions with my husband in my thirties, and twice as a woman in my 40s. Accept for one special therapist in graduate school where I had two sessions at a time of huge crisis I never felt like therapy was working. Now I have words why. The environment was sterile, forced, controlled and did not bring me joy. I thank this article for bringing me language to express what I could not express before.
Yoga is my therapy now. Maybe it is not the modality for everyone but for me it has been a game changer in my life.
This statement is also very important from the article.
“western mental health workers,” however well-intentioned, are not significantly different from the “Christian missionaries” who beheld “the white man’s burden” in Africa and attempted to “enlighten” them into Western ways. Less generously, it’s a form of cultural imperialism based on a spurious notion of Western cultural superiority that can be seen in every area of our culture.”
We have to be careful that we are not coming from a place of imperialism and privilege when we reach out to help individuals or communities. I even I (especially I) have to check myself with my volunteer work with at risk youth and Latino elders. A higher degree doesn’t mean I/we have the answers and know what’s right for everyone. Expensive education and/or skin color doesn’t justify paternalism.
As I understand it, research is moving toward explaining that trauma does not store in the pre-frontal cortex which is the verbal part of the brain. This explains why movement modalities that do not deal with language are so effective in treating depression. Bessel Van der Kolk author of The Body Keeps the Score will not treat patients with talk therapy unless they are doing yoga or some other form of contemplative movement. I believe this too. I believe in the healing power of the body. Everything we need is already within us. Let’s move!!!!!!!!!!!!! Let’s get outside! Let’s heal in community!
In addition, I related to this statement:
“. . . you can only get Obamacare for western mental health care; they don’t cover “body workers” such as cranial sacral, chiropractors, and masseuses, who have done more good for me personally (and many others) than pharmaceuticals have.”
I come against this all the time as a Yoga Therapist. People want to be able to bill my care to insurance but they can’t. I often think of getting a degree in Social work or Marriage and Family Therapy so I can bill my yoga services. Why with so much evidence behind these non-western modalities can we not change the paradigm and cover these services?
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