Decolonizing Clinical Documentation and Related Language Praxis: Chart as Co-Created Narrative Guide

  • Mallory is a second-year doctoral student in Psychiatry at the University of Alberta and is an Affiliate of the Arts & Humanities in Health & Medicine program. She lives in Inuvik, Northwest Territories and is Regional Clinical Supervisor for Mental Health and Addictions for the Beaufort Delta Region. Certifications: Registered Drama Therapist, (MA New York University), Certified Canadian Counsellor, Certified Daring Way™ Facilitator-Clinician (Brené Brown’s work), Clinical Traumatologist (Traumatology Institute) and Licensed Practical Nurse. Clinical focus includes: Forensic psychiatry, community outreach, addiction, grief, and trauma. Mallory has also completed the first level training in Narrative Medicine at Columbia University.

This research seeks to explore how disrupting standard Western-colonial language can create space for patients to co-construct and re-claim their experience, aligning more strongly with personal, cultural, historical, and traditional knowledge with the aim of working towards decolonizing mental health documentation and related language praxis.

The constraints of current hegemonic Western mental health practices which have systemized racism and inequity functions to produce ongoing mental unwellness, disproportionately with Indigenous people.

This study will undertake critical discourse analysis of clinical documentation through retrospective chart review to analyze how current language works to discursively construct and manage individuals receiving mental health care through essentializing practices and institutions. It will then explore alternative approaches to create improved patient experience, resulting in greater equity in the Beaufort Delta Region of the NWT.

Data gathered will influence the development of a clinical documentation language guide for mental health and toolkit for implementation. Collaborative co-creation with community members, respecting traditional ways of knowing, valuing relationality and healing together, recognizing the interconnectedness of the environment and climate change to all living beings grounds this approach, and along with art and aesthetics will be integral.

This project is co-funded in partnership with Hotıì ts’eeda.