Historical trauma, developed by Maria Brave Heart and her colleagues, is an integrated description of a condition that underlies a range of chronic ailments. It is an approach that looks outside the individual, and beyond one's own recollection and genetics as we know it. Historical trauma recognizes that people find meaning through the context of culture and family. And when one's culture has been traumatized -- as in the case of Native Americans -- or has been anesthetically amputated -- as in the case of the melting pot of Western culture -- individuals may lack the internal resources necessary to build a viable identity.

"Studies among the Lakota provide evidence to support generational trauma response features similar to the survivor's-child complex. Closer examination of suicide studies reveals implicit unresolved, fixated, or anticipatory grief about perceived abandonment as well as affiliated cultural disruption." ³²
-- Maria Brave Heart

Brave Heart argues that the high rates of alcoholism, depression, suicide, homicide, domestic violence, and child abuse among American Indians can be attributed to these processes of internalized oppression. She suggests that remediation starts with identity formation which, in turn, rests on a revival of extended kin networks, a sense of belonging, and recognition of a shared history.

Traditional Diné(Navajo) therapy addresses trauma in the remediation of substance abuse. Matthew Kelley points out the following seven advantages of traditional therapy over accepted Western methods.³³

(1) Cultural congeniality between client and practitioner.

(2) An emphasis on personality, "power," and rapport of the healer over mechanical technique.

(3) Traditional healers are accessible, available, and permanent.

(4) Indigenous practitioners act as role models to anchor the community.

(5) Holistic therapy integrates psychology, physiology, social, and spiritual components.

(6) Enhanced altered states, engaged emotional conditions, and sharply focused awareness are utilized in conjunction with culturally validated images.

(7) Therapy reintegrates family, kins-people, and community.

Victimized cultures carry a unique unresolved grief, but they have no monopoly over alienation, which is recognized as a defining feature of Western culture.³⁴ Trauma and alienation have similar malingering effects in undermining one's character and spirit.

In those cases where alienation triggers substance abuse -- which are most cases -- indigenous therapy retains these same advantages. Why can't Western therapies and Western therapists provide these benefits even to members of their own culture?

Expanding the Healer

"The shadow of the therapist crystallizes as pathology perceived in the patient." ³⁵
-- Eduardo Duran

Western therapies fail to appreciate the breadth and depth of addiction. This must change for the benefit of culture generally, for the benefit of all of us who are addicted, and not just for the remediation of substance abuse.

Western therapies have not identified whom they serve, whether it's the corporate, state, and healthcare institutions, or the individual, family, and culture. Traditional healing unequivocally serves the individual, family, and culture. We should too.

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