Resisting Epistemicide: Restoring Indigenous and Lived Wisdom for Grief Care

This course explores epistemicide—the systemic suppression of indigenous, lived, and non-dominant ways of knowing through colonial, psychiatric, and institutional forces—and examines the impacts of this loss on grief, identity, and community well-being. Participants will consider how dominant Western mental health frameworks may overlook or devalue Indigenous, cultural, and experiential ways of knowing, and examine the implications for clinical and peer support practices. Through remembrance practices, collective grieving rituals, and Indigenous-informed approaches to healing, participants wil...Read morel explore cultural frameworks for supporting complex and intergenerational grief. Less...

Learning Objectives

• Identify Indigenous and culturally rooted ways of knowing that have been marginalized through processes of epistemicide and describe the potential impacts of this loss on grief, identity, and healing.
• Describe and participate in experiential Indigenous-informed therapeutic interventions and discuss considerations for their ethical and culturally responsive application.
• Recognize how grief may be expressed through anger, resistance, and other culturally meaningful responses, and identify approaches for holding space within clinical and peer support settings.
• Apply principles of culturally responsive and trauma-informed care when supporting grief experiences shaped by historical, cultural, and intergenerational loss.

Thursday, August 20, 2026

06:00 PM EDT - 08:30 PM EDT