Indigenous mental health: the Rainbow Serpent awakening

Abstract

Understanding the complexity of another culture's health concerns is fraught with difficulty yet "Ways Forward" abound. Many researchers, including Indigenous people, have recorded cultural understandings of health, and made recommendations which have influenced the planning of Indigenous peoples' mental health care. Indeed, the Rainbow Serpent is active. Australian Indigenous people have suffered many losses which have resulted in much social unrest, and mental and spiritual sorrow. The difficulties of belonging in and adjusting to two different cultural contexts for some has led to particular physical health and mental health concerns. Health for Indigenous people is viewed within a holistic, and community lifestyle framework, related to both past and present issues, and it is not necessarily individualised or compartmentalised. A closer liaison between the health traditions of both cultures, working together with education, good will, and understanding of each other's health business, and within mainstream health services, may assist with healing, reconciliation and improved Aboriginal holistic health.