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| # | Date | Link |
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| #1 | 10/2/2011 | Excerpt from Coyote Wisdom Chapter 10 (Lewis Mehl-Madrona) This excerpt tells the story of my work with Tiffany, a young woman with cancer who was from the Christian faith and how we used Meister Eckhart as a way to bridge my Native American philosophies with Christianity to create a healing dialogue throughout the course of her cancer. this seems like an important story to me because it shows how we can create healing (meaning and purpose) even when the patient dies. |
| #2 | 9/7/2011 | Reflections upon transitioning to private practice
(Lewis Mehl-Madrona) Just over 2 months ago I left the public mental health sector in New York to transition into private practice in Vermont. This article reflects upon those two months of changes and wonders what we can learn from the type of care available in Vermont compared to New York and from New York's apparent discrimination against paying private practitioners in favor of community mental health centers.1  |
| #3 | 9/4/2011 | "Sport Injuries: Effectively Treated with Acupuncture" (Dr. Kathleen Albertson, L. Ac., PhD) Acupuncture is clinically proven to accelerate the healing of sports injuries. Integrating Western and Eastern treatment makes the most sense and can fully restore chronic and acute injuries in many cases. You often heal quickly, fully, and with improved performance. Acupuncture is commonly used for a wide variety of injuries. Read how it works and what it treats. |
| #4 | 9/4/2011 | When Consciousness Becomes The Basis Of Structure
(Vijayaraghavan Padmanabhan) Since the structure-consciousness link can work the other way round, one can postulate that changes in consciousness can produce modifications in the gene structure.2 |
| #5 | 9/4/2011 | Accountability
(Lewis Mehl-Madrona) This essay is about accountability. In the community mental health center where I have been working, most of the patients lack any sense of self-agency or accountability. Most see themselves as helpless victims of diseases over which they have no influence. They expect me to provide them with a drug that will regulate their moods and emotions and make them feel normal again. What does it take to restore a sense of agency?1 |
| #6 | 9/4/2011 | Sundance No. 2, 2011
(Lewis Mehl-Madrona) Barbara and I write this following our second sundance of the season. In this article we contemplate the idea of the sundance as an embodied metaphorical struggle in which the suffering and deprivation encountered are physical metaphors for the suffering of life. The mindset we use to embrace uncertainty matters in everyday life. We do best when we abandon the idea that we can know what is going to happen next.1 |
| #7 | 7/5/2011 | Thoughts after Sundance 2011
(Lewis Mehl-Madrona) I reflect upon Sundance 2011 and what I have learned. I realize that Sundance is about love and compassion and following this red road that leads to these directions. Sundance gives us an opportunity to rise to become spiritual warriors, to find all the benefits and none of the detriments of battle, to create a community of fellow warriors within which we can feel strong, and to transcend our natural limits to become more.1 |
| #8 | 4/24/2011 | Sweat Lodge, Prayer, and Community (Lewis Mehl-Madrona) Prayer and community have been stripped away from contemporary health care. Both are sorely needed. I talk about the sweat lodge ceremony as being a laboratory for exposing mainstream healthcare practitioners to the perspective on health and the world of Native American people and show how it produces the kind of connectedness and sense of belonging that we desperately need and which is associated with greater health. |
| #9 | 4/4/2011 | Adolescent Addictions and Las Vegas (Lewis Mehl-Madrona) 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. |
| #10 | 3/30/2011 | Nanglyala Mental Health Center (Lewis Mehl-Madrona) I write about the composite mental health center I have created in previous essays which comes from my and others' experiences working in mental health in New York State. I call it Nanglyala Mental Health Center, in honor of the Russian word for Valhalla, which one can't use, for it actually exists. I propose a thought experiment in changing the culture at NMHC, which I hope someone somewhere will be inspired to do. |
| #11 | 3/23/2011 | Narrative and Science: Day 13 of the Australian Journey (Lewis Mehl-Madrona) Today was our last full day in Australia and the occasion for a lecture and series of discussions at the University of Melbourne's Center for International Mental Health and School of Population Health. We explored the bridges between science and the indigenous world view of narrative. Particularly we were impressed with how neuroscience is completely supporting indigenous knowledge about narrative and its importance! |
| #12 | 3/22/2011 | The Power of Community: Day 12 of the Australian Journey (Lewis Mehl-Madrona) 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. |
| #13 | 3/19/2011 | Approaches to Trauma in the Indigenous Community -- Day 10 of the Australian Journey (Lewis Mehl-Madrona) 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. |
| #14 | 3/18/2011 | Implementing Narrative Practices: Day 9 in Australia (Lewis Mehl-Madrona) The highlight of Day 9 in our Australian cross-cultural mental health journey was a workshop for indigenous mental health and human service providers on how to make their services more indigenous friendly. This involves, of course, conscious decolonization of our clinical practices. We talked about the need to become more narrative, to listen longer and more deeply to the stories people tell us and to hear stories of others. |
| #15 | 3/18/2011 | Narrativizing is the first step at becoming indigenous friendly -- Day 8
(Lewis Mehl-Madrona) On Day 8, we asked how do we transform health care to become more indigenous friendly, whether it's mental health care of general medical care. The answer that jumped out was to implement narrative practice. Indigenous cultures are virtually uniformly cultures of story in which stories matter greatly. Being heard means having the opportunity to tell one's stories. "Treatment" begins by hearing and acknowledging stories.1 |
| #16 | 3/16/2011 | Still More Similar Than Different -- Day 7 of the Australian Journey
(Lewis Mehl-Madrona) Today finds us in Day 7 of our Australian Cross-Cultural Mental Health Journey. They lessons of these week have been very consistent -- indigenous from anywhere in the world is more similar than different. An elder proposed an answer for this. He said, "When you listen to the spirits and to nature and show respect, you get the same guidance 'cause spirits talk to each other. They know how the world should go!"1 |
| #17 | 3/15/2011 | More Indigenous Similarities Despite Differences -- Day 6 of the Australian Journey
(Lewis Mehl-Madrona) 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.1 |
| #18 | 3/13/2011 | Acupuncture and Chinese Herbal Medicine TreatsGynecology Related Problems: Bridging the Gap! (Dr. Kathleen Albertson, L. Ac., PhD) Traditional Chinese medicine includes acupuncture and the use of Chinese herbs formulated specifically or your condition. For 5000 years, gynecology related conditions have been effectively treated with the use of TCM. Learn how TCM treats these gynecolody disorders. |
| #19 | 3/13/2011 | Brains, Babies, and Verbal First Aid (Judith Acosta) When we have rapport and learn the basics of Verbal First Aid, we can take our children from crisis to calm, from pain to comfort. Our relationship with them and the words we use can lead them to a healing response not only in the moment but in the fullness of their entire lives. |
| #20 | 3/13/2011 | Imaging and doing are not as different as they sound
(Lewis Mehl-Madrona) Contemporary neuroscience has shown us that imagining an act and performing an act are virtually the same. We can strength our muscles almost as much by imagining exercising as by exercising. If mind is so powerful, why aren't we harnessing it for the good. I fear that mostly we allow it to run for the bad, imagining ourselves in any number of dire straights and illnesses, instead of imagining ourselves hale as we should.1 |
| #21 | 3/12/2011 | The Narrative Interview: Day 3 of the Australian Journey
(Lewis Mehl-Madrona) 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 |
| #22 | 3/11/2011 | Suicide and Mental Health: Australia Journey Day 2
(Lewis Mehl-Madrona) 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 |
| #23 | 3/10/2011 | Coyotes and Reclaiming Indigenous Knowledge (Lewis Mehl-Madrona) 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. |
| #24 | 2/10/2011 | An Alternative to Big Pharm: A Mental Health Journey With Classical Homeopathy (Judith Acosta) The following is a journey through several psychotherapy cases, how they may be seen in a homeopathic framework, and how healing can be enjoyed in a relatively brief period of time. |
| #25 | 1/18/2011 | Clinic Restructuring (Lewis Mehl-Madrona) I work part-time in a community mental health center in New York. Recently New York's Office of Mental Health has restructured clinical services. I write about what that has meant for quality of care, which inevitably goes down. I argue that this is inevitable in a "fee-for-service" system. I argue that the alternative is to pay physicians to care for panels of people and to do the best job as they see fit for these people. |
| #26 | 12/19/2010 | Hearing Voices and Seeing Visions: What to do?
(Lewis Mehl-Madrona) Once upon a time, in most of the world's societies, hearing voices and seeing visions was honored and desired. In contemporary, modern culture it has become the one symptom that allows an immediate diagnosis of a psychotic disorder. In this essay, I write about the downside of pathologizing voices, while still acknowledging that many people suffer enormously from voices and negative visions. I describe how to be healing.1 |
| #27 | 11/23/2010 | Celiac Blues and Greens (Dr. Cheryl Pappas) Celiac disease,invisible, undiagnosed, could be playing havoc with your physical and mental well-being. Learn to listen to your body and you can heal it. |
| #28 | 11/7/2010 | Narrative Interviewing and Behavioral Change
(Lewis Mehl-Madrona) 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.1 |
| #29 | 10/1/2010 | Beyond Biofeedback: How Words Can Help Children Heal (Judith Acosta) Children learn who they are in the world via an organic form of biofeedback. Everything we say and do communicates and that communication is received by them not only cognitively but, perhaps more importantly, physiologically and genetically. |
| #30 | 9/19/2010 | Explanatory Plurarlism (Lewis Mehl-Madrona) I ask the question, what if all knowledge existed in the form of stories and all stories were true? If we practiced in this manner, as advocated by Uncle Albert, an aboriginal elder, how would we act? The notion of explanatory pleuralism argues that explanatory stories on any particular level do not have to relate to any other level of explanation; rather they must correspond to the level of which they are explaining. |
