Australasian Psychiatry

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How Can Country, Spirituality, Music and Arts Contribute to Indigenous Mental Health and Wellbeing?
Pauline Guerin, Bernard Guerin, Deirdre Tedmanson and Yvonne Clark
Australas Psychiatry 2011 19: S38
DOI: 10.3109/10398562.2011.583065

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 How can country, spirituality,
CREATIVITY
INDIGENOUS music and arts contribute to
Indigenous mental health and
wellbeing?
Pauline Guerin, Bernard Guerin, Deirdre Tedmanson
and Yvonne Clark

Objective: Mental health and social and emotional wellbeing (SEWB) have
been linked as outcomes of attachment to country, spirituality, and engagement
in music and arts, particularly for Indigenous Australians. It is not clear how
this occurs, even though the links seem substantial.

Method: We explore how mental health and SEWB may be linked to

attachment to country, spirituality, and engagement in music and arts by
reviewing literature and presenting examples from our research with Indigenous
communities. Rather than abstracting, our goal is to describe specific examples
encompassing the rich contextual details needed to understand the factors
contributing to mental health and SEWB.

Results: While engagement in music is often seen as benefiting mental health

because thoughts and feelings can be expressed in less public ways, it can also
lead to employment and access to economic and social resources. Attachment
to country also shows a plethora of positive outcomes which can contribute to
mental health and SEWB even when not explicitly aimed at doing so, such as
reducing conflictual situations.

Conclusions: We conclude that more detailed, contextual research is required

to fully explore the links between creative enterprises and mental health and
SEWB outcomes.
Key words: arts, attachment to country, Indigenous Australians, mental
health, social and emotional wellbeing.

INTRODUCTION
The literature relating to mental health and wellbeing for Indigenous
Australians has often relied on abstract concepts derived from specific
examples to explain how engagement in music, arts, spiritual activities, and
Australasian Psychiatry • Vol 19, Supplement 1 • 2011

attachment to country contribute to improving mental health and social

Pauline Guerin
and emotional wellbeing (SEWB). In contrast, our goal has been to explore
Associate Professor (Psychology) Flinders University School of
Nursing and Midwifery, Adelaide, SA, Australia.
the details of specific examples while fully encompassing the rich contex-
Bernard Guerin
tual details necessary to understand the interplay of a range of factors that
Professor, School of Psychology, Social Work and Social Policy,
contribute to mental health and SEWB. The top of Figure 1 illustrates how
University of South Australia, Adelaide, SA, Australia. the literature may conceptualize that mental health and SEWB are improved
Deirdre Tedmanson through engagement in music and that this is mediated by, for example,
Lecturer, School of Psychology, Social Work and Social Policy, music’s ability to help people express their thoughts and feelings.
University of South Australia, Adelaide, SA, Australia.
The bottom part of Figure 1 illustrates the complex elements that may relate
Yvonne Clark
to a person’s engagement in these activities. As an extreme example, our
Senior Lecturer, School of Psychology, University of Adelaide,
Adelaide, SA, Australia. personal observations have shown that someone could buy a musical instru-
Correspondence: Professor Bernard Guerin, School of Psy- ment and just carry it around, and in doing this could change a whole range
chology, University of South Australia, St Bernard ’s Road, of things that would improve their mental health and wellbeing, especially
Magill 5153, SA, Australia.
in terms of how people relate to them socially and their self-identity.

doi: 10.3109/10398562.2011.583065
S38 © 2011 The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists
Downloaded from apy.sagepub.com by guest on January 28, 2013
 Figure 1: Schematic of conceptualizations of benefit from engagement in creative activities.
For example, other people might show interest and ini-
tiate conversations. The person may not even know how
to play the instrument, or may not even take it out of
the case, but could find that this new “identity” creates
social contacts that were not previously available.
A big part of the problem is that social analysts and
scientists are entrenched in the need to identify a single
cause, or a general pathway that causes or creates the
benefits from engaging in an activity (as in the top part
of Figure 1). Social scientists often fail to delve further
into the many and varied social contexts that provide
multiple pathways for social events to arise,1 and then
also fail to take these into account when planning
interventions.2
Consider an example of a program in the UK that tried
to use involvement in a choir for girls in a school to
increase self-esteem. They found that privileged girls
benefited, but that girls who were disadvantaged were
further disadvantaged and marginalized by their old
friends as a result of participation in the program.3 Those
girls were more likely to drop out of the program.
IT IS THE JOURNEY, NOT JUST THE
DESTINATION
The social elements and contexts that contribute to
the benefits of engagement in creative activities or
are involved in spirituality and attachment to country
have not been described well in the literature. It is
important to identify that a whole range of social con-
texts often contribute to whether someone is engaging
in an activity in the first place, and these contexts are
important to understand how these activities might be
harnessed as therapeutic tools to benefit mental health
and SEWB. The processes that go into the production
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of the “act” are just as important as the act itself, if not
more so. It has been argued that describing the full
social contexts for behaviours relevant to mental health
is probably more important than making abstract
statements or theorizing.4
Engaging in music likely results from many and varied
pathways, perhaps unique to specific groups, individu-
als, or social contexts. Music may lead to employment
and access to economic and social resources that in turn
allow the achievement of goals not otherwise attainable.
Overall, engaging in music changes the social context.
As an example from the desert region of Central Australia,
one woman has said about her singing that: “It makes
me feel good inside... singing makes you busy from other
things, bad things that you see and talk about.”5 This
quote is illustrative of the focus on internal abstract con-
cepts as causes for engaging in music. As another exam-
ple from the central desert region the Ngapartji Ngapartji
project6 has worked with elders on the Anangu Pitjant-
jatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Lands to record historical
narratives through music which facilitates people
recounting stories through music and song; “inma
ngalpa-ngalpa irititja tjuta” means “play songs from the Australasian Psychiatry • Vol 19, Supplement 1 • 2011
past” and thus a process occurs that is capturing mem-
ories of country and activities past through social
engagement. This example illustrates how music can be
a mode for teaching history and culture. Participants of
the Ernabella choir and the Ernabella children’s choir
have said that the local choirs have a special place in
community life: “they sort of bring people together”.
Participation in the choir creates social spaces and
contact. One component of an APY Lands Arts Demon-
stration Project conducted by Carclew7 from 2006–2008
focused on music development in which young Anangu
wrote their own songs and developed compilations of
their recorded music as part of an engagement with the
S39
 arts aimed at strengthening cognitive, social and personal
skills for wellbeing. These songs reveal young people’s
sense of agency, belonging and identity connecting
themselves to their home communities through a sense
of self in place. For example one song by a young
Anangu woman from Amata, which is now available
worldwide through the internet on youtube,8 describes
how: “Amata is where it’s at”, while another song
describes: “my day in Pukatja...wati, kungka, tjitji [man,
woman, children] we all living together like one big
family”. In these ways music enables not only an expres-
sion of “self” but also a connection to community and
a contemporary take on attachment to country.
ATTACHMENT TO COUNTRY
The Indigenous mental health literature often refers to
attachment to country as being related to mental health
and SEWB. Attachment to country has a plethora of
positive outcomes, most of which can contribute to
mental health and wellbeing even when not explicitly
aimed at improving mental health and wellbeing.
In a research project by Trzepacz et al.,9 Nukunu com-
munity members in South Australia talked about their
attachment to country and what it meant for them.
While not specifically asked about mental health or
SEWB aspects, these frequently surfaced. Nukunu par-
ticipants described how their country brings a sense of
identity and belonging, that they felt it was a place with
nurturing qualities, that when away from their land
they felt unhappy and unfilled, how people often
returned to country to assist with recovery from illness
(including wellbeing), and how activities conducted on
country (such as natural resource management) pro-
vided group cohesiveness and empowerment (which in
turn contributed to elements above).
These are important points, but as mentioned above, it
is critical to resist trying to make them into general
patterns and events that will be likely applicable to all
Indigenous people, or even all Nukunu. It is more likely
that individual examples of attachment and relations
to country will be very different and that there is no
overall pattern. For example, one person in the research
talked about how he had special places on country that
Australasian Psychiatry • Vol 19, Supplement 1 • 2011
he liked to go to when feeling depressed. This always
worked for him, but not everyone has access to their
own country and not everyone would benefit from the
healing that nature or country can bring about. Addi-
tionally, because one strategy works for some people,
this then should not be seen as a sole intervention strat-
egy, but rather is one tool in the “intervention strategy
toolbox”. More importantly, exploring the other social
contexts relating to the particular example above are
just as important as “the act” of going on country, for
example, getting a break from family or work demands.
Many mental health programs are expected to have an
“evidence” base to justify what they are doing, but
often the reasons why programs are not successful in
S40
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one place, despite being successful elsewhere, is because
the social elements relating to the program are not well
described.
CONFLICTS
Another indirect pathway from engagement in creative
activities to better SEWB is that engagement in music
and arts, spirituality and attachment to country can
also reduce or avoid conflictual situations. Less conflict
can then in turn contribute to better mental health and
SEWB, even if there is no direct effect from the music
or art making itself. All the activities involved in arts
and being on country mean that social conflict situa-
tions and patterns can be disrupted, although this
might be very difficult to measure.
CONCLUSION
We believe that we have only begun to touch on the
many pathways that can mean better mental health
outcomes from engagement in arts, music, spirituality
and country. More detailed, contextual research is
required to fully explore the links between creative
enterprises and mental health and SEWB outcomes. This
requires an approach in which the task is brainstorming,
exploring and describing all possible, and perhaps
unique, contexts rather than one of looking for an over-
all, measurable “cause” for any effects, or attempting to
make a general statement about the pathways that can
then be applied to all Indigenous Australians.
Unfortunately, much of our training in how to think
about these issues goes into narrowing the focus around
mental health-related behaviours to causes, rather than
broadening and creatively brainstorming what might
be going on. So too, our training in research focuses on
testing cross-sectional differences between abstract the-
ories rather than delicate and detailed descriptions of
social, historical, economic and cultural contexts.1
Finally, our training in intervention and the exigencies
of government policy means a focus on generalizable
and repeatable interventions rather than “contextual
evidence”-based interventions that might lead to better
contextually based policies.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This paper was presented at the 2010 Creating Futures conference in Cairns, Australia. The
authors wish to acknowledge the people in the APY Lands, Nepabunna, and Nukunu com-
munities for their generous contributions and participation. We also thank key informants
in government and non-government organizations in South Australia and Northern Territory
who have generously talked to us about mental health and wellbeing issues in rural and
remote Australia and for Aboriginal Australians.
DISCLOSURE
We also would like to acknowledge funding from the Australian Research Council
(DP0877901), the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders studies and
earlier work that was funded by the Desert Knowledge CRC. The authors alone are respon- 4. Guerin B. Replacing catharsis and uncertainty reduction theories with descriptions of
sible for the content and writing of the paper. the historical and social context. Review of General Psychology 2001; 5: 44–61.
5. Westwood M. Religious choirs a constant across desert generations. The Australian 14
September 2007. http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/arts/religious-choirs-a-
constant-across-desert-generations/story-e6frg8n6-1111114413183.
REFERENCES 6. Ngapartji Ngapartji project in Pukatja at: http://www.ngapartji.org/content/view/
1. Guerin B. Handbook for Analyzing the Social Strategies of Everyday Life. Reno, NV: 218/1/.
Context Press, 2004. 7. Carclew’s APY Lands Demonstration Project . http://www.carclew.com.au/Event?event
2. Guerin B. Handbook of Interventions for Changing People and Communities. Reno, NV: ⫽ RemoteOutreachProjects.
Context Press, 2005. 8. Kelly L. “Move Your Feet” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v ⫽ cmeKNa5N7i8.
3. Hampshire KR, Matthijsse M. Can arts projects improve young people’s well-being? A 9. Trzepacz D, Guerin B, Thomas J. The importance of country for Indigenous social well-
social capital approach. Social Science and Medicine 2010; 71: 708–716. being: yarning with the Nukunu community. Unpublished paper, 2011.

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