Women and Gender Studies (WGST) 505

Overview

Women’s and Gender Studies 505 critically examines the decolonization of mental health through Indigenous theories, knowledges, and clinical practices. Students will begin by grounding in their own social location and throughout the course, will analyze the impact of identity on mental health and access to culturally safe care. By identifying the continued influence of settler colonization on mental health and its institutions, the course aims to deconstruct taken-for-granted Western notions of psychological wellness. Students will further consider the relationship of gender and sexuality to colonization and mental health, with an emphasis on women’s and Two Spirit people’s lived experiences. Diverse Indigenous therapeutic approaches, storytelling, and art practice are explored to provide contemporary examples of wholistic Indigenous healing, resistance, and resurgence. While WGST 505 focuses on culturally competent counselling and trauma work with Indigenous people, it also analyzes the effect of white settler benevolence in several helping professions, including social work, healthcare, criminal justice, and education. Students will leave this course with the ability to effectively apply principles of decolonizing mental health to their own lives, relationships, communities, and careers.

Outline

Unit 1: Grounding and Situating

Unit 2: What Is Decolonization?

Unit 3: Deconstructing Mental Health

Unit 4: Gender and Sexuality

Unit 5: Heart Berries and Apple Seeds

Unit 6: Indigenous Approaches to Therapy and Trauma Work

Unit 7: Resurgence Through Art, Laughter, and Sex

Unit 8: Psychiatrization, Disability, and the Canton Asylum

Unit 9: White Benevolence in the Helping Professions

Learning outcomes

When students have successfully completed WGST 505, they should be able to:

• identify the historical, intergenerational, and contemporary impact of colonization and colonial pathologization on Indigenous people’s mental health,
• apply critical and self-reflexive understandings of identity and positionality as they relate to decolonizing mental health,
• describe a wide diversity of applied Indigenous healing approaches to counselling, therapy, and trauma work,
• appraise the value, critiques, and efficacy of decolonizing mental health through decolonial and postcolonial theories,
• recognize how gender and sexuality are affected by colonization while centring Indigenous women’s and Two-Spirit people’s resistance and healing,
• identify theories of Indigenous resurgence through contemporary Indigenous artists, storytelling, and applied art practice, and
• examine and challenge white benevolence in mental health helping professions, such as psychiatry, social work, education, health care, and criminal justice.

Evaluation

To receive credit for this course, students must participate in the online activities, successfully complete the assignments, and achieve a final mark of at least 60 percent. Students should be familiar with the Master of Arts—Interdisciplinary Studies grading system. Please note that it is students’ responsibility to maintain their program status. Any student who receives a grade of “F” in one course, or a grade of “C” in more than one course, may be required to withdraw from the program.

The following table summarizes the evaluation activities and the credit weights associated with them.

Materials

Other Material

All other reading and audiovisual materials for this course are available online through the course site and the Digital Reading Room.

Important links

• Master of Arts in Interdisciplinary Studies
• Focus Areas
• Courses
• Fees and Funding