Working with Spirituality - issues for western social workers working in traditional Indigenous communities
In a time and place where cultural difference is now not only acceptable, but is often celebrated, the last bastion of ethnocentrism is spirituality. This workshop explores the differences between religion and spirituality and the concepts of ethnocentrism and cultural relativity as they relate to spirituality and the helping professions.
The workshop will have a focus on Indigenous spirituality. An inability to think outside of the dominant paradigm provides a serious impediment to engaging traditional Indigenous clients and achieving successful interventions within traditional communities. The workshop will be an opportunity to reflect on the impact a worker's dominant western perspective can have on power dynamics and the therapeutic relationship.
Traditional Indigenous spiritual beliefs are often viewed by the mainstream as a primitive understanding of the world. Could it be that in a truly civil society differences in spiritual awareness and spiritual belief systems would be valued and that health and welfare services would treat individual and community spiritual beliefs with the respect that other belief systems are afforded?