![]() ![]() ![]() These differing worldviews and ways of working are brought into sharp focus in clinical mental health settings and are evident in the angst and confusion often present amongst non-Aboriginal psychologists and mental health practitioners who work with Aboriginal clients. Combined with a general inflexibility in organisational governance structures and processes, this means that changing how non-Aboriginal professionals work with, and relate to, Aboriginal people, their families and communities is a challenging but necessary pursuit (for example, Isaacs, Pyett, Oakley-Browne, Gruis, & Waples-Crowe, 2010 Molloy, Walker, Lakeman, & Lees, 2019). ![]() For example, relationships in kin-based societies are inclusive and reciprocal yet these characteristic Aboriginal ways of being are frequently absent in mainstream non-Aboriginal organisations, their systems and practices, where there are limited numbers of Aboriginal counsellors and little access to Aboriginal forms of healing. Significantly, non-Aboriginal people often struggle to understand Aboriginal worldviews and, in particular, how social relationships are shaped in societies that are kin-based (Dudgeon, Wright, Paradies, Garvey, & Walker, 2014 Dudgeon, Bray, D’Costa, & Walker, 2017). There are ongoing tensions in how AboriginalĪnd non-Aboriginal peoples in Australia understand and interpret their very different worldviews, which are reflected in different ontologies (ways of doing) and epistemologies (ways of knowing) (Rigney, 2001 Foley, 2003 Durie, 2004 Dudgeon & Fielder, 2006 Nakata, 2010). It’s about time white fellas did some cultural adaptation and learned more about our Nyoongar culture and ways so they can work better with us (Nyoongar Elder co-researcher interview, 2015). ![]()
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