Associate Professor

Contemporary issues in transcultural psychiatry
Lewis Mehl-Madrona*
Symposium Description: Cross-cultural psychiatric work can enrich the profession with an appreciation of other cultures’ views of mind and mental health, and it can challenge our usual ways of conducting our work. Dr. Lewis Mehl-Madrona will present a qualitative study of interviews with psychiatrists who have traveled to Indigenous communities about how they have changed their approaches and practices to be more accepted in these communities. Acceptance increases efficacy. We summarize what they have learned about themselves, their approaches, and what worked within these communities. Dr. Raymond Tempier will expand upon that through his own experiences of traveling to rural and remote communities in Canada to deliver services, emphasizing his observations of arctic theories of mind and mental illness and responses to treatment. He will speak to the interaction of their traditional ideas with colonial concepts. Dr. McFarlane will describe his study of community violence and institutional violence within health care settings within reservation health care and how that violence interferes with care. Ms. Mainguy will extend these observations into the area of substance use treatment, providing autoethnographic data about treatment responsiveness in this population. We will conclude with a discussion of what psychiatry can learn from observing the theories and practices of Indigenous people, which is relevant not just to immigrants from Africa and the Middle East but may also provide a pivot point for reflection upon how psychiatry is practiced in general.
Chair – First name: Lewis
Chair – Last name: Mehl-Madrona
Chair – Country: United States
Chair – Email: lewis.mehlmadrona@maine.edu
Co-chair – First name: Raymond
Co-chair – Last name: Tempier
Co-chair – Country: Canada
Co-chair – Email: raymondtempier@montfort.on.ca
Speaker 1 – First name: Lewis
Speaker 1 – Last name: Mehl-Madrona
Speaker 1 – Country: United States
Speaker 1 – Email: lewis.mehlmadrona@maine.edu
Speaker 1 – Presentation title: Qualitative Study of psychiatrists’ modifications of approach when working in Indigenous communities
Speaker 2 – First name: Raymond
Speaker 2 – Last name: Tempier
Speaker 2 – Country: Canada
Speaker 2 – Email: raymondtempier@montfort.on.ca
Speaker 2 – Presentation title: Analysis of challenges of flying into rural and remote communities in North America to practice psychiatry.
Speaker 3 – First name: Patrick
Speaker 3 – Last name: McFarlane
Speaker 3 – Country: United States
Speaker 3 – Email: patrick2042np@gmail.com
Speaker 3 – Presentation title: Effects of community violence and institutional violence upon mental health symptoms in Indigenous communities
Speaker 4 – First name: Barbara
Speaker 4 – Last name: Mainguy
Speaker 4 – Country: Canada
Speaker 4 – Email: artbarb@gmail.com
Speaker 4 – Presentation title: Ethnographic and autoethnographic investigations of strategies of managing substance use for Indigenous populations

Lewis Mehl-Madrona