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Lewis Mehl-Madrona graduated from Stanford University School of Medicine and completed residencies in family medicine and in psychiatry at the University of Vermont. He is the author of Coyote Medicine, Coyote Healing, Coyote Wisdom, and Narrative Medicine.
Wednesday, September 1, 2010 Cancer and Coyote Magic in Woodstock (3 comments)
I reflect upon the stories people create to explain their cancer and how some of these stories can be used to make them suffer even further. I wrote about Sarah, a woman with lung cancer who attended a workshop I co-led with my friend, Peter Blum. Sarah suffered enormously from believing that if she did everything "right", she would get well and her cancer would go away. It wasn't. Therefore, she was bad. What do we do?
Sunday, August 15, 2010 Psychiatrists in Community Mental Health (1 comments)
This article explores the role of the psychiatrist in community mental health. I find myself working in this setting and realizing that almost everyone sees my role as the writing of prescriptions. Medication has become the core of community mental health with twice monthly, 25 minute "therapy" visits. I ask how psychiatrists working in such settings can push back. How can we reclaim psychiatry as the medicine of the soul?
Monday, August 9, 2010 NICABM and MInd-Body Medicine (1 comments)
I reflect upon the contributions of the National Institute for the Clinical Advancement of Mind-Body Medicine toward furthering the field. At their upcoming conference this December, prominent are newer ideas of neuroplasticity and chronic pain. Through the understanding that pain circuitry in the brain are remodeled by the experience of pain so as to make people feel more pain, we can refute old ideas of pain.
Sunday, August 1, 2010 Walking with Dementia (1 comments)
Unexpectedly I find myself visiting a friend for the weekend who is helping his mother place his father into a long-term care facility. My friend's father has vascular dementia, the result of a series of strokes, each one of which rendering him progressively less capable. Nevertheless, we have a marvelous walk in which he demonstrates the unassailable curiousity of human beings for describing the motivations of others.
Monday, July 26, 2010 Why can't the sundance feeling last all year long? (1 comments)
I reflect on my experience of coming out of sundance, which is always a powerful, personally transformative experience for me and those others with whom I dance. Because of its deep embodiedness, sundance is simultaneously mental, physical, spiritual and communal. This and the prayers brought to sundance and the examples provided by the dancers of transcending our physical limits, explains in part the amazing healings seen.
Thursday, July 8, 2010 One Road, Many Branches
This article builds upon my past two weeks of talking about Indian identity. It is written on the sundance grounds as I prepare for purification and for this season's sundance. I talk about the way that the drug and alcohol treatment movement brought ceremony and ritual into the lives of both Indians and non-Indians. People discovered the power of the Red Road. Ethnic boundaries disappeared in the welcome for all people.
Friday, July 2, 2010 Community -- Why is it hard?
Belonging to community has huge benefits. It's hard because true community includes annoying and irritating people who don't agree with us. It includes people who sometimes act bizarre or socially inappropriately. It doesn't exclude and it minimizes power imbalances. Having true community takes work, because it's easier to be anonymous and let other people be in charge. But the effort pays off, and it's worth it.
Wednesday, June 30, 2010 More on the Politics of Indian Identity (1 comments)
Based upon comment on last weeks, "More Indian than Thou" essay, I continue my musings about the politics of Indian identity. I explore the fundamentalist response which argues that pure bloods are more Indian than mixed bloods and that non-status Indians have no business reading about, participating in, or even being interested in aboriginal culture. I argue that this would, in fact, allow the U.S. government to succeed.
Tuesday, June 22, 2010 Why do we need Stories?
Making up story is what are brains do best. In fact, the default mode of the brain is to idly invent what if and if only stories to so that we can run simulations of our social world. We are designed to fill in gaps in our perception. We must reject much environmental information in order to maintain a stable world map.
Wednesday, June 16, 2010 More Indian Than Thou (1 comments)
More Indian Than Thou is a current artefact of blood quantum discussion. It disenfranchises many, and seems to contain some of the same political aspects as our oppressors. This article addresses the question of Indian identity. Can a person be an Indian without being enrolled in a tribe. Can a person claim Native American heritage without tribal enrollment and endorsement? What are the politics of "Indianness"?
Monday, June 7, 2010 Community Revisited
Each of us is a neuron in a social brain. We need connectedness to each other to regulate our moods. I propose that the current explosion in the rates of diagnosis of anxiety disorders, depression, and bipolar disorder is relted to our lack of connectedness. We no longer have other people to regulate our moods and emotions. Alternatives to isolation are available and desirable but require us to relinguish some freedom.
Wednesday, June 2, 2010 Reflections on the American Psychiaatric Association's annual meeting
This past week we attended the annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Association in New Orleans, Louisiana. The high point was the amazing food that New Orleans offers. Besides that, we dialogue about the myths that psychiatry has created that now need to be changed. These myths include the idea that a perfect pill exists to make people feel "normal" and that a pill exists that can change unpleasant affect in happiness
Wednesday, June 2, 2010 Modern Day Shamanism
Summary: The word "shamanism" has become very popular. But what does it mean and why do traditional North American deplore this word. Traditional healers are accountable to their communities. Others in the anonymous society must face regulation and must prove that they are more beneficial than harmful. The word shaman is no doubt here to stay, but there is an advantage to resisting it in that it brings to attention the di
Sunday, May 23, 2010 Who's in Charge Anyway?
To what degree do we control our lives? Advocates of The Secret claim we have complete power to create whatever we wish. A more realistic world view is that of the Lakota who believe we are thrown into a universe of vast forces and influences over which we have no control. Within that context, we do what we can. I believe we need a philosophy that recognizes our embeddedness in a world that we didn't create and our capacit
Thursday, May 6, 2010 What is a traditional healer?
I address the question of what is a traditional healer and define a category of hybrid healers -- people who have studied with traditional healers but are also steeped in the modern culture. Those of us who are hydrid healers can "never go home again". We can't go back and claim to be traditional healers because we have been influenced by too many other stories?
Tuesday, April 27, 2010 Using Creation Stories In Healing
Creation stories are important, because the final story about how you or I got well must be compatible with the story about how we got sick, or the treatment will never work. In my studies of remarkable healings, I found that every person had a plausible story (to them) for how their illness occurred and how they got well
Thursday, April 22, 2010 Learning from Native North America for Health Care (1 comments)
The traditional healing of North America is slowly findings its way into conventional clinical settings. Not everyone (Native and non-Native) agree with its entry there. Some people believe that traditional healing should be restricted to Native people and kept away from Non-Natives. Others believe it should be openly shared with all. Even knowing what is a traditional healer is a debated question. Some people call themse
Friday, April 16, 2010 Psychology and Health Care Reform (1 comments)
A lunch meeting with Dr. Martin Johnson, a Honolulu psychologist, taught me much about how mental health coverage will change under health care reform. Insurance companies will have to provide mental health coverage on par with their coverage of medical conditions. But, who will be credentialed to provide these services? remains a question. Credentialing could limit access to services by limiting the numbers of providers.
Friday, April 9, 2010 Crossroads (1 comments)
This weekend I attended a conference called Crossroads in Topanga Canyon, California. We met together to think about bringing healing circles and talking circles to ever corner and intersection in America. We experienced a healing circle together, which inspired us to think more about what it would mean for health care if all of us to belonged to one. Health care costs will only soar unless people begin to take ca
Monday, March 29, 2010 Integrative Mental Health and Health Care Reform (1 comments)
A recent conference in Arizona on Integrative Mental Health highlighted how poorly our current mental health care system is working. The conference was full of passion for changing our system and for incorporating nutrition, exercise, yoga, and psychotherapy into our work to improve effectiveness. More time with people is necessary and health care reform needs to reimburse that time. Indigenous mental health ideas show us...
Sunday, March 21, 2010 Insurance Should Pay For Healing, Not Treating
Numerous studies have shown that 80% of primary care visits to health care practitioners involve the ordinary suffering of daily life and not diseases that need treatment, yet we throw pills and potions at these woes as if that is their solution.
Wednesday, March 17, 2010 Health Care and Alternative Health in France (1 comments)
I recently had the opportunity to speak at a conference in Paris, France. The conference was about what we call CAM, or Complementary and Alternative Medicine, in the United States, and particularly about the basis for some CAM practices in advanced physics. I had a chance to get an idea about the French health care system as well as check out new research on homeopathy
Friday, March 5, 2010 Tapping Creation Stories For Healing and Energy
Creation stories are ubiquitous in life. Our families tell us stories of our birth. Cultures also tell stories about their own creation, and people tell stories about how they got sick and how they got well. The story about how an illness arose is particularly powerful and has multiple versions. People's own stories about how they got sick may or may not parallel the official medical story...
Monday, February 15, 2010 Treatment Programs -" Do they work?
we consider the question of treatment -" does it work? Treatment is a billion dollar industry in America. So many people go for treatment and so many experts purport to tell people how to reform. The question -" does it work? Does treatment actually help anyone?
Thursday, February 11, 2010 The Miracle of Peacefulness
Unfortunately, miracles cannot be guaranteed or produced on demand. What is more certain is our ability to cultivate a sense of peacefulness and meaning even in the face of illness. This is miraculous in itself given today's world and medical culture. So many people sit namelessly, faceless and alone on nursing home floors, passing the time before death.
