
Coyote's Swing
David Edward Walker
A Native foster youth brings a completed Pfizer Corporation’s "PTSD Self-Quiz" she found in a U.S. Indian Health Service clinic waiting room to her psychologist, hoping a new diagnosis will allow her to discontinue her current stimulant medication. After advocating on her behalf and that of other Native clients in his care, the psychologist is put on a "performance improvement plan" by clinic supervisors. Subsequently, a nurse practitioner at the clinic sends a letter to the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services regarding concerns over poor medical care and infection control, only to be transferred out shortly after.
Coyote’s Swing reveals how the U.S. mental health system reframes Native American reactions to oppression and marginalization into "mental disorders" and "mental illness." Contemporary practices of the Indian Health Service echo historical "Indian lunacy" determinations, false imprisonment in the Hiawatha Asylum for Insane Indians, stigmatizing of Native children kidnapped to federally- and mission-run boarding schools as "feebleminded," sterilizing of Native people evaluated by white psychologists as "unfit to reproduce," and long-standing doctrines of impairment and deficiency foreign to Native values of spiritual balance and wellbeing.
Immersed in this system and its history for two decades, David Edward Walker develops provocative connections between past and present while using a traditional Yakama tale as a motif. Combining narrative ease and a scholar’s eye, he exposes how the "white man’s Cat" continues to push Coyote, Sacred Trickster, on a "swing" of Western mental health ideology that has threatened Native lives and culture for over 150 years. Coyote’s Swing combines Walker’s firsthand experiences as a consulting psychologist with rare history and sociocultural critique.
Duration - 12h 30m.
Author - David Edward Walker.
Narrator - David Edward Walker.
Published Date - Wednesday, 01 January 2025.
Location:
United States
Description:
A Native foster youth brings a completed Pfizer Corporation’s "PTSD Self-Quiz" she found in a U.S. Indian Health Service clinic waiting room to her psychologist, hoping a new diagnosis will allow her to discontinue her current stimulant medication. After advocating on her behalf and that of other Native clients in his care, the psychologist is put on a "performance improvement plan" by clinic supervisors. Subsequently, a nurse practitioner at the clinic sends a letter to the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services regarding concerns over poor medical care and infection control, only to be transferred out shortly after. Coyote’s Swing reveals how the U.S. mental health system reframes Native American reactions to oppression and marginalization into "mental disorders" and "mental illness." Contemporary practices of the Indian Health Service echo historical "Indian lunacy" determinations, false imprisonment in the Hiawatha Asylum for Insane Indians, stigmatizing of Native children kidnapped to federally- and mission-run boarding schools as "feebleminded," sterilizing of Native people evaluated by white psychologists as "unfit to reproduce," and long-standing doctrines of impairment and deficiency foreign to Native values of spiritual balance and wellbeing. Immersed in this system and its history for two decades, David Edward Walker develops provocative connections between past and present while using a traditional Yakama tale as a motif. Combining narrative ease and a scholar’s eye, he exposes how the "white man’s Cat" continues to push Coyote, Sacred Trickster, on a "swing" of Western mental health ideology that has threatened Native lives and culture for over 150 years. Coyote’s Swing combines Walker’s firsthand experiences as a consulting psychologist with rare history and sociocultural critique. Duration - 12h 30m. Author - David Edward Walker. Narrator - David Edward Walker. Published Date - Wednesday, 01 January 2025.
Language:
English
Opening Credits
Duration:00:00:24
Introduction
Duration:00:26:05
Part I: Cat Brings Coyote's Swing: One: Coyote Swings
Duration:00:22:57
Part I: Cat Brings Coyote's Swing: Two: "Who Are You, and Why Are You Here?"
Duration:00:53:43
Part I: Cat Brings Coyote's Swing: Three: A Brief Swing Backwards
Duration:00:14:17
Part II: Coyote Swings Back and Forth: Four: The Disordered Native
Duration:00:28:01
Part II: Coyote Swings Back and Forth: Five: Oppressive and Genocidal Realities
Duration:00:49:32
Part II: Coyote Swings Back and Forth: Six: IHS Attempts to Prevent Native Suicide
Duration:00:33:01
Part II: Coyote Swings Back and Forth: Seven: Border Skirmish
Duration:00:52:23
Part II: Coyote Swings Back and Forth: Eight: "Being PTSD"
Duration:00:48:52
Part III: Building Coyote's Swing: Nine: Collective Suffering
Duration:00:50:51
Part III: Building Coyote's Swing: Ten: Exploring the Soul Wound
Duration:00:54:37
Part III: Building Coyote's Swing: Eleven: "The Continuance of Their Race"
Duration:00:56:38
Part III: Building Coyote's Swing: Twelve: Generational Carry
Duration:00:45:59
Part III: Building Coyote's Swing: Thirteen: My Generational Carry
Duration:00:54:14
Part III: Building Coyote's Swing: Fourteen: Entering the Asylum
Duration:00:29:56
Part III: Building Coyote's Swing: Fifteen: Locked Inside Hiawatha: Josephine's "Delusions"
Duration:00:17:22
Part III: Building Coyote's Swing: Sixteen: Locked in Hiawatha: Emily's Demise
Duration:00:10:47
Part III: Building Coyote's Swing: Seventeen: Locked Inside Hiawatha: Two Eyewitnesses
Duration:00:19:56
Part III: Building Coyote's Swing: Eighteen: Locked in Hiawatha: The Soldier
Duration:00:15:44
Part III: Building Coyote's Swing: Nineteen: Today's Indian Asylums
Duration:00:12:15
Part IV: Dismantling Coyote's Swing: Twenty: Hope and Reason
Duration:00:52:25
Ending Credits
Duration:00:00:46