(1 comments) SHARE        Friday, March 11, 2011
Suicide and Mental Health: Australia Journey Day 2 (2195 views) Lewis and Coyote Institute are on Day 2 of an Australian journey which is a cross-cultural exchange about ideas for mind and mental health. Today we focused upon suicide which elders told us was rare in Australia prior to European contact, but now, all to common. We focused upon suicide as a modern non-indigenous template for the communication of suffering which sometimes backfires leading to accidental death.

(1 comments) SHARE        Sunday, August 15, 2010
Psychiatrists in Community Mental Health (2181 views) 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?

(1 comments) SHARE        Sunday, March 13, 2011
Intergenerational and Historical Trauma: Day 4 of the Australia Journey (2178 views) We continue our Australian cross-cultural mental health journey for day 4. Today's topic was intergenerational and historic trauma. In an inter-faith context we talked about the need for the suppressed stories to be told. We talked about epigenetics, which is the way in which the trauma of the ancestors are genetically transmitted across as many as four generations, if not more. We discussed the need to tell these stories.

(1 comments) SHARE        Wednesday, June 30, 2010
More on the Politics of Indian Identity (2170 views) 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.

(1 comments) SHARE        Monday, March 29, 2010
Integrative Mental Health and Health Care Reform (2170 views) 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...

SHARE        Monday, April 4, 2011
Adolescent Addictions and Las Vegas (2154 views) This weekend I attended an addictions and mental health conference focused upon adolescents in Las Vegas, Nevada. What an appropriate venue! I spoke about narrative practices in relation to addictions -- how we have to counter the dominant stories about magical potions and find other heroic stories that work equally well.

SHARE        Saturday, March 12, 2011
Eqalitarian Healing: or What can we Learn from Vygotsky (2132 views) Vygotskyan ideas are useful to explain a concept my colleagues and I are developing for egalitarian healing. We are working to undermine the expert professional/defective client model and to put those who help people and those who are helped on a more equal footing. Vygotskyan theory helps us understand how to do this. Vygotsky describes a More Knowledgeable Other concept in which this Other can teach learner missing skills

SHARE        Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Modern Day Shamanism (2119 views) 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

(1 comments) SHARE        Saturday, March 12, 2011
Rescue: When is it Unethical? (2117 views) An under explored ethical area is that of what Michael Ortiz Hill, in his marvelous new book, The Craft of Compassion, has called professional narcissism. This is when we need our clients to get well for our own needs. Of course, we want to think that we are effective and can help people, but the more we think this way and the less we think of dialogical resolution where each contributes to the outcome, the more harm we do.

SHARE        Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Why do we need Stories? (2094 views) 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.

(1 comments) SHARE        Tuesday, January 18, 2011
What we can learn from Tucson and why not to overreact! (2085 views) The recent tragedy in Tucson has led some commentators to demand more inpatient beds, easier commitment laws, and forced treatment with medication. I argue that none of this would have stopped Mr. Loughner, since he had not come to anyone's attention yet. We need to refrain from overreacting and further stigmatizing the mentally ill, who are, by and large, not violent, and we need to think about ways to reach out more.

(1 comments) SHARE        Sunday, November 7, 2010
Narrative Interviewing and Behavioral Change (1982 views) In this article, I talk about the importance of finding the stories behind behaviors that are adverse to health. Health behavior is not rational, but is guided by stories that people have about how life should be lived. Many times they do not realize what these stories are, since they are from their earlier years and are so ingrained as to be outside awareness. I show how changing story allows people to change diet.

SHARE        Monday, May 10, 2010
Coyote Healing Excerpt from Chapter 4, The Medicine Wheel (1947 views) This is an excerpt from my book, Coyote Healing: Miracles from Native America. It's about the medicine wheel.

SHARE        Sunday, May 23, 2010
Who's in Charge Anyway? (1932 views) 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

(1 comments) SHARE        Sunday, August 1, 2010
Walking with Dementia (1888 views) 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.

SHARE        Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Reflections on the American Psychiaatric Association's annual meeting (1879 views) 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

SHARE        Monday, February 15, 2010
Treatment Programs -" Do they work? (1870 views) 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?

SHARE        Thursday, July 8, 2010
One Road, Many Branches (1859 views) 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.

(1 comments) SHARE        Monday, March 14, 2011
Indigenous People are more Similar than Different -- Day 5 of the Australian Journey (1838 views) Today is Day 5 of our Australian cross-cultural mental health adventure. We traveled from Melbourne to an aboriginal owned island which has ancient sites and is in the Gippsland Lakes. The take home message for the day came from a Gunnai-Kurnai aboriginal man at the end of the day, who said, "Indigenous people are more similar all over the world than they are different." He had the final word for the day, which is so true.

(1 comments) SHARE        Tuesday, March 15, 2011
More Indigenous Similarities Despite Differences -- Day 6 of the Australian Journey (1833 views) This is Day 6 of the Australian cross-cultural mental health exchange journey. Today we all experienced a form of healing used in the Northern Territories called "burning". They correct usage appears to be, "I burned her and she got well." One doesn't actually get burned, but palm bark is ceremonially placed in the area of an injury or sickness after having been made warm in a fire, accompanied by touch therapy and prayer.