The following article, "Natives Find New Age Help in Hawaii" by Suzanne Fournier was originally published in The Calgary Herald, Jan. 28, 2001, page A1.
This reprinted version of the work was found online in a Yahoo group.
https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/TurtleIslandNativeNetwork/conversations/topics/240
[Update Oct. 1, 2021: dead link]
Sun 28 Jan 2001 News A1 / FRONT Suzanne Fournier, Vancouver Province
Natives find New Age help in Hawaii
By: Suzanne Fournier, Vancouver Province
Natives are spending thousands of tax dollars jetting off to Hawaii for workshops in questionable New Age therapies.
Critics say the training trips, and the ensuing therapy sessions on the reserves, are a waste of taxpayers' money, unhelpful and potentially dangerous for victims of everything from residential school abuse to sexual assault and addictions.
But Dr. Jay Wortman, B.C. director for Health Canada's medical services branch, says bands can spend health money as they like.
"We might not condone it and I agree 100-per-cent it looks bad, but it would be paternalistic to dictate to First Nations how they spend their health dollars."
In Manitoba, however, Health Canada is suing to recover $5 million from a native centre that used counselling dollars to send staff to the Caribbean and Hawaii.
About 14 B.C. natives attended $2,500 workshops in Hawaii last November.
Dr. Charles Brasfield, a North Vancouver psychiatrist who has treated hundreds of native residential-school victims, says they typically require lengthy one-on-one counselling, which Health Canada refuses to pay for.
When bands spend money on quick-fix New Age therapies such as Neurolinguistic Programming and something called Psychology of Vision, he says, Health Canada looks the other way.
"Typically, these quick-fix money-makers try to get an aboriginal 'trainer' as a front," he said. "We tried to warn medical services how public money was being spent but they weren't interested.
"We're very concerned about the influx of these money-making quick-fix therapies. They're very expensive and they're just sweeping reserves."
Agrees Vera Manuel, a Secwepemc playwright and qualified traditional therapist: "It's a feeding frenzy out there -- all kinds of so-called therapists are coming out of the woodwork."
"These New Age therapies are becoming as oppressive to us as the first wave of religion -- some of them are like cults. This is not a good use of the small amount of money we have."
Carole Dawson of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs said she has complained repeatedly to health and Indian affairs officials about her impoverished Tsawataineuk reserve, on northern Vancouver Island, paying for NLP workshops.
"They just don't listen," she said.
"Not only is this taxpayers' money being wasted, it's dangerous, irrelevant drivel -- how does our social worker spending two weeks in Hawaii help the people suffering on our reserve?"
Tsawataineuk social worker Charlene Dawson was among those who flew to Hawaii in November for NLP "training," for which she says she borrowed $3,500 for airfare, hotel and meals "that I'll be paying off for years."
The workshop, in Kona-Kailua on Hawaii, was put on by Nimpkish band member Richard Hunt, who lives in Tsawwassen and makes a comfortable living as an NLP "master trainer."
He didn't charge Dawson for the workshop. Instead, she agreed to promote NLP workshops on reserves, where they would be paid for with federal health dollars or Indian affairs dollars.
Dawson, a single mother of five, defended going to Hawaii: "You're on a big high -- Hawaii is so beautiful. But when you get home, reality hits. It's a real let-down." Said elder Flora Dawson, Carole's mother and a distant relative of Charlene: "Elders and home-care clients weren't really looked after while she was gone."
The Neskainlith band near Chase paid $3,200 for two band members to attend, which band social development director Leigh Ann Edwards admitted is "more than a third of our annual medical services training money."
"I don't understand NLP, but it's popular," she said. "We prefer to fund aboriginal counsellors here but it's hard."
Hunt, 38, said he has given "hundreds" of paid sessions on reserves since he became a "master trainer" in 1995.
He said he isn't concerned that NLP has little credibility among medical experts: "NLP by itself I agree might not be useful, but I do use our aboriginal experience and the real kicker I use is called timeline therapy." Timeline therapy is an NLP technique to eliminate negative thoughts and emotions about previous events in a person's life.
Asked about the ethics of charging cash-strapped bands thousands of dollars for Hawaii workshops, Hunt replied angrily: "I didn't twist their arms or force them to come, did I?"
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