It is hard to believe that tribal societies can have a better life than the luxurious modern wealthy societies. In the book Tribe, Sebastian Junger stresses on the deterioration of mental health in modern wealthy societies, which is caused from the loss of people interacting with each other as a community. Unlike the modern wealthy societies, Junger utilizes tribal communities to show how being active within the community can promote mental stability. The author uses the !Kung tribe as evidence to compare the difference in mental health to the modern wealthy societies. The !Kung tribe is a nomadic group of people who lived in the Kalahari desert. The tribe work extremely close together in order to survive. Since each member is reliant on one …show more content…
In order for the members of the !Kung tribe to survive everybody needs to “lend a hand.” Junger describes the !Kung tribe’s dependency of one another as: “They would have done almost everything in the company of others. They would have almost never been alone” (Junger Page 18). Dependency is key for survival for the !Kung tribe. This promoted mental health because each member had to work together and rely on each other every day. The !Kung tribe labored and interacted with one another towards a common goal of surviving as a community can also be called teamwork. Thomas Rasmussen analyzed how teamwork within a group of people can promote mental stability: “Teamwork is associated with a positive spiral in work-related attitudes and behaviors interact in generating positive outcomes” (Rasmussen Page 118). Rasmussen clarifies that teamwork is an important attribute to have within a group of people because there are benefits of positive physiological factors. Being dependent in a community not only helps with work load, but it also helps with making each individual in the community to be mentally stable. The members of the !Kung work together in order to support the community can be related as teamwork, which can therefore boost mental
These tribes were extremely smart people. They did not build out in the middle of nowhere by themselves. Many villages were created. This offered many properties to the cultural lifestyle of these tribes. The village offered significantly more protection from outsiders as well as almost forcing people of the community to band together and become a close knit unit. These villages consisted of multiple longhouses built in the middle with a palisade wall around the outside such that people could not get in from the outside without coming through the doors. This w...
It is these people that lived in tribes, and to this day, most of them remain devoted to their principles and their people. This is because of the fact that they recognize the significance of such values; they know what matters more, and having calculated individuality and its risks most of them are aware untying themselves from their people.
As with any other group of people there're are individuals who chose not to scratch any backs. The hunters that don't share with the needy will never be considered to be a husband or a quality hunting partner. Also it won't be likely for the individual to receive help in his own time of need. You could see how this could hinder one's survival. However the charitable, get a sort of praise from the tribes people, and will be looked upon to be husbands and hunting partners. Because they helped when they could, they can expect to be helped should tragedy strike. Generosity is clearly the more attractive option as a way of continuing one's existence.
In conclusion, this tribal benefits help someone of not feeling awkward and alone. They have the push to maintain a good physical, and to have the push of someone else. Of them not feeling like they can’t, and to feel powerful of
Guerin, B. & Guerin, P. 2012, 'Re-thinking mental health for indigenous Australian communities: communities as context for mental health', Community Development Journal, vol. 47, no. 4, pp. 555-70.
...ress; working together is success." Being able to stick together and help one another, many will go far in life.
Psychology of Poverty And Its Impact On Mental Health. (n.d.). Retrieved May 05, 2014, from Best MSW Program: http://www.bestmswprograms.com
In the very different Zuni and Dobu tribes there is a common theme. The Zuni culture concentrates on the well being of community as a w...
Another important quality in a successful society is collaboration. Collaboration is the act of wo...
Lyons writes, “when people are actively engaged in a cause their lives have more purpose… with a resulting improvement in mental health” (Junger 49). Those who work and feel a sense of purpose are more likely to succeed. They not only will have better mental health but this will impact their work ethic and increase their incentive to help others. If an an entire team feels they have purpose in an operation, they will have strong determination and be able to work well with one another and be able to communicate. In Tribe, Junger explains it is human nature that “humans are so strongly wired to help one another and enjoy such enormous social benefits from doing so” (55). Humans have always had the urge to help others and this leads to people automatically working together to help others for their well being, especially during extreme times of need. Crisis tends to be a bonding experience and it brings people together in the most peculiar way to work on a common goal. “Crisis had an immediate status-leveling effect on the nascent community of survivors it had created. A sense of brotherhood… lower and upper class, collaborated in the collective efforts to obtain immediate necessities and survive” (Junger 54). When a team works together during a crisis, hierarchy seems to completely disappear and all that matters is that the team collectively works to accomplish their goal. Strangely, this teamwork creates closeness. A
Toseland, R & Rivas, R 2012, An Introduction to group work practice, 7th edn, Allyn & Bacon, Massachusetts.
The importance of non-kinship traditions in African tribes is part of the way in which social and political organizations are formed through age, skill sets, and residency. The separation of members of the society can determine the age set of the individual, and the political power that they wield in certain social situations. The Masai tribe is sub-Sahara Africa defines the role of age sets for men, which determine boys, warriors, and elders in the community,. Often, these tribal members will be separated from the community to guard the herds as part of the non-kinship rites of passage for young men. More so, the Masai Tribe recruits
When viewed as weak contributors to the group this can affect the groups dynamic and cause problems within it sometimes resulting in resentment and conflict. For example, if only four of the six group members are contributing to a task it can result in a divided in the group. This divide is know as the “in group” and “out group’ and as a result causing emotional tension and less productivity (Latane, 1979). The larger the group the more likely it will be that social loafing will occur. Loafing can be instigated or reinforced by the nonexistence of an individual assessment caused by the environment (Price & Harrison, 2006). This transpires as working in a group environment results in a decrease of self-awareness (Mullen, 1983). For example when effort of sales are measured within a group, and individual is more likely to loaf than if they were measured
For this to occur however, requires an understanding of culture and society, as well as governance and process. In addition, I have also understood the power of strength based approach, how strength based therapy used in relationships an essential factor among group members. I view this class as the opportunity to practice how effectively work with groups and individuals to understand their own inherent power. Therefore, I learned the way of using a strengths-based approach; I can highlight the assets of group members, offering building blocks which can then lay the foundation of their social change. Furthermore, I understand change could be a mutual process, so in group therapy until group members became comfortable with each other to share their experiences giving them space and later help them to engage in along with group process. I also learn how to help in the facilitation of change, by asking open questions, validating, empathic and allowing them to feel what they are feeling, and empower them what they wants to do with their current
What happened was that six individuals became a team and the team gave itself wholeheartedly and spontaneously to co-operation in the experiment. The consequence was that they felt themselves to be participating freely and without afterthought and were happy in the knowledge that they were working without coercion from above or limitation from below. They were themselves satisfied at the consequence for they felt that they were working under less pressure than ever before. In fact regular medical checks showed no signs of cumulative fatigue and absence from work declined by 80 per cent.