440 LAURENCE J. KIRMAYER, GREGORY M. BRASS, AND GAIL GUTHRIE VALASKAKIS 20 Conclusion: Healing / Invention / Tradition LAURENCE J. KIRMAYER, GREGORY M. BRASS, AND GAIL GUTHRIE VALASKAKIS A s the contributions to this volume make clear, notions of tradition and healing are central to contemporary efforts by Aboriginal peoples to confront the legacy of injus- tices and suffering brought on by the history of colonization. Through individual and community-based initiatives as well as larger political and cultural processes, Aboriginal peoples in Canada are involved in healing their traditions, repairing the ruptures and dis- continuities in the transmission of traditional knowledge and values, and asserting their collective identity and power. Any approach to mental health services and promotion with Aboriginal peoples must consider these ongoing uses of tradition to assert cultural identity. However, it is import- ant to recognize that tradition itself is both received and invented: built in equal measure of wisdom transmitted across the generations and of creative visions of how the many strands of knowledge available today from diverse cultures of the world can be woven to- gether in new patterns. Even though oral tradition works to maintain an unbroken chain of teachings, collective history is retold in new ways in each generation, using contem- porary images and vocabulary. Living traditions are always works in progress. Academics and scholars also belong to communities, professional associations, and social networks that embody traditions – a shared value system, intellectual interests, and philosophical questions that have been collectively debated and discussed for decades, centuries, or even millennia. The clinical disciplines of psychology, psychiatry, and other mental health professions are more recent traditions that consist of not only accumulated scientific knowledge or technical skills but also systems of cultural values and practices. Recognizing that mental health professionals belong to communities and that their prac- tices are part of a “tradition” provides a way to think about the conflict and complemen- tarity between different healing practices. Differences may reflect superficial choices of models, metaphors, or materials, but they also may point toward deeper conflicts in values. Making these different values explicit is a necessary step toward respectful co-existence or developing a meaningful integration of Aboriginal and academic psychological per- spectives on mental health and healing. In this concluding chapter, we consider some of the models of healing in current circulation and discuss their implications for Aboriginal mental health policy, services, and interventions. kirmayer.indd 440 kirmayer.indd 440 8/10/2008 9:01:29 PM 8/10/2008 9:01:29 PM