What does decolonisation within psychology mean for me?
Overview This panel discussion will explore the definitions and application of decolonisation in Australia. Specifically, it asks: What role can psychology and psychologists carry out within a decolonisation agenda?What does it look like for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples & for non-Indigenous Australians? What actions/attitudes/behaviours are involved?, and What can the discipline do to […]
Cultural safety in Trauma-Informed Practice: What’s culture got to do with it?
Overview This webinar explores the importance of culture in therapeutic practice, and will cover: concepts of cultural awareness levels cultural protects holistic client conceptualization cultural worldviews the journey from unconscious incompetence through to unconscious competence taking a systems approach historical trauma 6 guiding principles of Trauma-Informed Practice the 5R’s of Trauma-Informed approach cultural practices of […]
Challenging the Hegemony: Decolonising Neuropsychology
Indigenous community psychologies, decolonization, and radical imagination within ecologies of knowledges.
As the American Psychological Association Taskforce on Indigenous Psychology acknowledges, fidelity to the inalienable right to self-determination is the ethical foundation of Indigenous psychology. The task of decolonizing psychology is not only about divesting from Eurocentric paradigms that have controlled and limited Indigenous wellbeing, but producing new paradigms founded on Indigenous knowledges. The Indigenous paradigm […]
Decolonising Australian Psychology: The Influences of Aboriginal Psychologists
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in Australia have been profoundly impacted by colonisation and continue to counter its affects by rebuilding language, regaining access to lands and living culture, and enhancing social and emotional wellbeing. The discipline of psychology has played a major role in perpetuating harm towards Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples […]
Indigenization in clinical and counselling psychology curriculum in Canada: A framework for enhancing Indigenous education
This article considers how to advance Indigenous education in counselling and clinical psychology in Canada, particularly at the intersection of curriculum, programmatic, and systemic shifts in graduate education. This article focuses on the curricular practices that the counselling and clinical psychology field could enact in efforts to advance reconciliation, reduce educational and mental health disparities […]
Indigenous peoples and professional training in psychology in Canada
With the release of the Canadian Psychological Association’s (2018) response to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (2015) there has been increased attention on the ways psychology in Canada might better serve the needs of Indigenous communities, in particular in terms of education and professional training. To date, there has been almost no research […]
Viewpoint: Professor Jeffrey Ansloos on the importance of Indigenous content in Canadian classrooms
Decolonising higher education: First Nations student perspectives in Australia
First Nations students at RMIT shared their perspectives on how universities can promote inclusion and Indigenous perspectives at the recent UNESCO World Higher Education Conference in Barcelona, Spain.
Australia needs to decolonise its mental health system and empower more Indigenous psychologists
Decolonising psychology and the transformative role of the AIPEP
Indian residential schools in Canada: Persistent impacts on Aboriginal students’ psychological development and functioning.
Indian residential schools (IRSs) in Canada subjected thousands of students to horrific experiences and contributed to serious problems for Aboriginal peoples and Canadian society. A model is proposed that uses existing psychological theory and empirical research to explore the possible impacts of IRS experiences. The model identifies four aspects of student experiences that were a […]
Pulling Together: A Guide for Curriculum Developers.
The Curriculum Developers guide is part of an open professional learning series developed for staff across post-secondary institutions in British Columbia. Guides in the series include: Foundations; Leaders and Administrators; Curriculum Developers; Teachers and Instructors; Front-line Staff, Student Services, and Advisors; and Researchers. These guides are the result of the Indigenization Project, a collaboration between […]
A Manifesto for Decolonising Design
Difficult Knowledge and Uncomfortable Pedagogies: student perceptions and experiences of teaching and learning in Critical Indigenous Australian Studies
This research presents a grounded interrogation of students’ perceptions and experiences of teaching and learning in two mandatory stand-alone Critical Indigenous Australian Studies subjects at an Australian university. The study proffers rare empirical insight into the student experience of teaching and learning about colonialism, racism, whiteness and privilege. It contributes to building a better understanding […]
Culturally responsive pedagogies of success: Improving educational outcomes for Australian Aboriginal students
The Role of Psychologists in a Changing Time
This is the third video in a three-part video series and collaboration between the Transforming Indigenous Mental Health and Wellbeing project and Pearson Australia. This dynamic three-part video series provides foundational learning about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultural knowledges, and explores contemporary global issues, such as the Black Lives Matter movement. Together, the video […]
Introduction to Indigenous Psychology
This is the first video in a three-part video series and collaboration between the Transforming Indigenous Mental Health and Wellbeing project and Pearson Australia. This dynamic three-part video series provides foundational learning about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultural knowledges, and explores contemporary global issues, such as the Black Lives Matter movement. Together, the video […]
The legacy of racism and Indigenous Australian identity within education
It may be argued that the emerging discourses focusing on the social, emotional, educational, and economic disadvantages identified for Australia’s First Peoples (when compared to their non-Indigenous counterparts) are becoming increasingly dissociated with an understanding of the interplay between historical and current trends in racism. Additionally, and if not somewhat related to this critique, it […]
Cultural humility and decolonial practice: narratives of therapists’ lives
Objective: Cultural competence has been critiqued as a flawed principle, focussed on mastery of cultural knowledge rather than critical reflection on race and privilege. Cultural humility is proposed as an alternative, emphasising accountability over mastery, involving critical self-reflection of personal biases and culture. This study aims to explore the development of cultural humility in psychological […]
Synergy of systems theory and symbolic interactionism: a passageway for non-Indigenous researchers that facilitates better understanding Indigenous worldviews and knowledges
Historically, non-Indigenous researchers have contributed to colonisation by research based on Western positivistic philosophical frameworks. This approach led to disembodying knowledge from Indigenous people’s histories, worldviews, and cultural and social practices, thus perpetuating a deficit-based discourse which situates the responsibility of problems within Indigenous peoples and ignores the larger socio-economic and historical contexts in which […]
Addressing inequities in Indigenous mental health and wellbeing through transformative and decolonising research and practice
Aim: This paper discusses the current mental health and social and emotional wellbeing in Indigenous Australian mental health and wellbeing, the gaps in research, the need for transformative and decolonising research and practice, and the opportunities and recommendations to address existing mental health inequities. Method: This paper reviews key mental health and social and wellbeing […]
What Contributions, if Any, Can Non-Indigenous Researchers Offer Toward Decolonizing Health Research?
Four non-Indigenous academics share lessons learned through our reflective processes while working with Indigenous Australian partners on a health research project. We foregrounded reflexivity in our work to raise consciousness regarding how colonizing mindsets-that do not privilege Indigenous ways of knowing or recognize Indigenous land and sovereignty-exist within ourselves and the institutions within which we […]
Neoliberal anti-racism: Responding to ‘everywhere but different’ racism
Racism cannot be treated as a spatially homogeneous phenomenon. This review reports on the merits of a localized approach to anti-racism, and delivers a frank assessment of the challenges faced when developing local responses to racism in a neoliberal era. Under neoliberalism, local actors are responsibilized, and for anti-racism this means action can potentially be […]
Decolonising clinical psychology: National and international perspectives
Background Throughout the 19th and 20th Centuries psychology has been used as a tool of colonisation. Critical theorists argue that in order to improve the wellbeing of those most affected by inequality, psychology programs need to be decolonised. In the Australian context, research has primarily focused on what decolonised curricula might look (e.g., Dudgeon 2017; […]