New psychiatry for Aborigines sought

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33671, 22 October 1974, Page 17

New psychiatry for Aborigines sought

f.V Z. Press Assn—Copyright) PERTH, Oct. 21. A Sydney psychiatrist today called for a new extension, or branch, of psychiatry to deal with “the endemic suffering of Aborigines in Australia.’’ Professor John Cawte of the University of New South Wales said that the present conventional framework of psychiatry was not adequate to cope with the condition of “gross and mass suffering,”! afflicting entire Aboriginal communities. Professor Cawte was deliv-j ering the Squibb academic address at the annual congress of the Australian and, New Zealand College of Psy-' chitrists being held in Perth/ The theme of his talk was! “Suffering: What Aborigines Teach Us.” He asked his audience:; “Can you envisage a whole community in pain, beweep-,

iing all together their outcast [ state? ! “Can you envisage suffering as epidemic, endemic and "Ipandemic until a whole comci munity is exhausted, deJpleted, even dead? 1 I “If you can do this much, )|you will accept that our con- , i ventional framework of -1 psychiatry is not adequate 5 for it, and that we shall have to devise some extension or branch of psychiatry, which I f have called macropsychiatry. Professor Cawte said that 1 an extension of the scope of t psychiatry was needed if f members of the profession , were to consider realistically j the suffering of Australia’s ■■ original settlers. ’ Macropsychiatry was conI cerned with the pathology of : adaptive processes used by /human groups under stress, /including those confronted by [lack of resources, he said. I It had to be distinguished ■ from social and community; /psychiatry, which were; /aspects of the public healthy movement concerned with the i -malaise of individuals in theiri Relation to society. He said that it did no good - .to blame all the problems of!

i Aborigines on contact with I white culture. ! There seemed to be a coniviction held by many activists, both black and white, [that Aborigines conducted a i well-adapted, even ecologically idyllic life before the advent of the white man. This was not true. There were plenty of grave difficulties and macropsychiatric problems before the advent of the white man, he said. Professor Cawte said of the view that the problems of Aborigines were due to culture contact: “To harp on this theme may induce feelings of guilt in the white society which I do not think will progress us toward desired goals,” he said. “If the spur is guilt on one • side and self-pity on the I other, we have a sick process of the neurotic, leading Ithe neurotic. j “I am not suggesting that white contact was not disj astrous for many groups of . native Australians. “I am just pointing out that -tribal Aborigines who remember the pre-contact days, do [not claim that it was a bed of roses,” he added.