Lewis Mehl-Madrona: Day 8 of Australia 2013: Bairnsdale On the next to the last day of our Australian cross-cultural journey we visit our friend Wayne, who's now the Koorie Liaison Officer for AdvanceTAFE, an educational concern in Victoria. Our focus for the workshop that Wayne arranged for us was to consider how to better use culture to address problems in the community. The problems were the usual suspects -- drugs, alcohol, violence, gambling. What happens under colonization 1 

Lewis Mehl-Madrona: Day 7 of Australia 2013: Hearing Voices and Mind Mapping Day 7 found us working with the Prahran Mission's Hearing Voices Victoria about indigenous and narrative approaches to voices. We demonstrated the use of what I call mind mapping with the various voices we hear inside our minds. This technique works for everyone, voice hearers or not, for we all hear talk inside our heads, the question being where we think it's coming from. In mind mapping we identify the talk and talkers. 1 

Lewis Mehl-Madrona: Day 2 of Australia 2013: Story is Healing Today we considered how story can save people's lives. When people are filled with negative stories about being inferior and worthy of humiliation and contempt, they respond accordingly often with substance misuse and violence. The traditional cultural stories of all of our peoples are antidotes to this negativity. By immersing ourselves in our cultural stories, we can turn victimization into recovery and transformation. 1 

Lewis Mehl-Madrona: Day 12 of the Australian Journey Day 12 of the Australian cross cultural exchange journey consisted in our leading an inipi ceremony (sweat lodge) for people associated with Mission Australia. We also learned much about some very exciting projects being conducted by Mission Australia, including the Michael Project, which is an intensive effort to assist homeless people in Sydney, and the Catalyst-Clemente Project, which provides education for disadvantaged.

Lewis Mehl-Madrona: Day 11 of the Australian Journey 2012 Today is Day 11 of the Australian cultural exchange adventure for 2012. We interacted with Mission Australia in Sydney and were deeply impressed with their services for young people and for homeless adults. They have managed to integrate shelter with education and skills training so that homeless people become able to transition into the work force. One person told us, "I came here a prostitute, and I left an artist."

Lewis Mehl-Madrona: Day 10 of the Australian Journey 2012 Today was Day 10 of the journey and was a day for reflection and preparation for the Sydney portion of our trip. We reflected upon what culture camp had meant for people and confirmed that we would come again next year. Then we flew to Sydney and ate a marvelous fish dinner.

Lewis Mehl-Madrona: Day 6 of the Australian Journey 2012 Today is Day 6 of the 2012 Cultural Exchange Adventure in Australia. It was also the first day of culture camp at Boole Poole with the aboriginal coop. The driving rain prevented our crew from Northern Australia from doing much outside. We had planned a sweat lodge ceremony but that was cancelled also due to the rain. So instead, while we tried to stay dry, I interviewed the new doctor at the Coop.

Lewis Mehl-Madrona: Day 5 of the Australian Journey 2012 I describe the fifth day of our journey for cross-cultural exchange. Today was primarily a day of our teaching. The days vary from receiving mostly to giving mostly. We focused on the importance for everyone, regardless of ethnicity or indigenous status to participate in ceremony in such a way as to feel closer to the spiritual dimension and to celebrate what's good and positive about one's life instead of tales of misdeeds.

Lewis Mehl-Madrona: Day 4 of the Australian Journey 2012 Day 4 of the Australian Journey finds us in Warburton with Auntie Jennie, an aboriginal elder from Queensland. I discuss the workshop we did together and explore further the concepts that integrate indigenous theories of mind and mental health with the Hearing Voices movement, showing that its founders were thinking indigenously as they approached voices, which appears much more effective than the biomedical approach.

Lewis Mehl-Madrona: Medical Writing: the Healing Power of Narrative This article represents the start of my annual trek to Australia to work with an aboriginal cooperative in Southeastern Australia. The goal is to help them to incorporate their culture into their health care and other human services through cultural exchange with aboriginal North Americans, aboriginal people from the North of Australia where culture is less disrupted, and others from the area. More to come of my 2 weeks!

Lewis Mehl-Madrona: The Power of Community: Day 12 of the Australian Journey Day 12 of our Australian Journey for cross-cultural exchange in mental health was a low-key day of exchanges about healing in community. We explored the concept that healing cannot occur so easily without involvement of the entire community. Those people to whom we are accountable must agree to allow us to change, or we will not change. We must be invited by the important others in our life to perform a different story.

Lewis Mehl-Madrona: Approaches to Trauma in the Indigenous Community -- Day 10 of the Australian Journey Today is Day 10 of the Australian Cross-Cultural Mental Health Journey. Today we talked about trauma in aboriginal communities and how to address that trauma. We collaboratively arrived at some ideas to propose. We agreed that narrativizing is necessary. We need to hear the stories of woundedness that people have to tell and to celebrate their resistance to abuse and to focus more on the resistance than on being a victim.

Lewis Mehl-Madrona: The Narrative Interview: Day 3 of the Australian Journey Today finds us on Day 3 of our Australian cross-cultural journey. Our focus today is on the narrative interview. How would we interview people if our focus was to elicit their story instead of making a conventional DSM diagnosis. I interview a woman who has been suffering for 12 years and who has finally been offered an antidepressant medication. I show how her suffering can be rendered intelligible through narrative. 1 

Lewis Mehl-Madrona: Suicide and Mental Health: Australia Journey Day 2 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 

Lewis Mehl-Madrona: Coyotes and Reclaiming Indigenous Knowledge Three of us from Coyote Institute have journeyed to Australia to consult with a local aboriginal group on how to incorporate local culture into their health care and other services. This is the first in a series of daily blogs about the trip. I begin by wondering about coyote as a symbolic muse, an animal who lives at the margin and is currently expanding its territory. We discuss templates for the expression of pain.