Treatment Satisfaction and Recovery in Saami and Norwegian Patients Following Psychiatric Hospital Treatment: a Comparative Study

Artikkel som sammenlikner tilfredshet med behandling og bedring hos samiske og norske pasienter i psykiatrisk sykehus.Treatment, treatment satisfaction and recovery in Saami and Norwegian patients treated in a psychiatric hospital were compared. Although half of the Saami patients preferred to speak Saami with their therapists, only one patient did. The extensive use of traditional helpers was only partly recognized. Despite no differences in type and amount of treatment or symptom-change during the hospital stay, the Saami patients showed less satisfaction with all investigated treatment parameters including contact with staff, treatment alliance, information and global treatment satisfaction. There was less agreement between the ratings of the therapists and the Saami patients. Suggestions for improvements are made.Sametinget; Universitetssykehuset Nord-Norg

Healing in the Sámi North

There is a special emphasis today on integrating traditional healing within health services. However, most areas in which there is a system of traditional healing have undergone colonization and a number of pressures suppressing tradition for hundreds of years. The question arises as to how one can understand today’s tradition in light of earlier traditions. This article is based on material collected in Sámi areas of Finnmark and Nord-Troms Norway; it compares local healing traditions with what is known of earlier shamanic traditions in the area. The study is based on 27 interviews among healers and their patients. The findings suggest that although local healing traditions among the Sámi in northern Norway have undergone major transformations during the last several hundred years, they may be considered an extension of a long-standing tradition with deep roots in the region. Of special interest are also the new forms tradition may take in today’s changing global society

'Missä v... on Vuotso?': toisen maailmansodan pakkosiirtojen ja tuhon perintö saamelaisessa poronhoitoyhteisössä Suomen Lapissa

In this paper we discuss the heritage of the WWII evacuation and the so-called burning of Lapland' within a Sami reindeer herding community, and assess how these wartime experiences have moulded, and continue to mould, the ways people memorialise and engage with the WWII material remains. Our focus is on the village of Vuotso, which is home to the southernmost Sami community in Finland. The Nazi German troops established a large military base there in 1941, and the Germans and the villagers lived as close neighbours for several years. In 1944 the villagers were evacuated before the outbreak of the Finno-German Lapland War' of 1944-1945, in which the German troops annihilated their military installations and the civilian infrastructure. Today the ruins of demolished German military installations persist around the village as vivid reminders, and act for the villagers as important active agents in memorising this vital phase in Lapland's recent past. They also appear to facilitate nostalgia for the more independent days before traditional Sami lifeways were ruptured by stronger Finnish State intervention in the post-war decades.Peer reviewe