Native Americans in professional healing professions may creatively incorporate Native ways in their work, but the path is not easy. The same is true for those coming from a Western background that realize there is something lacking in modern medicine and are attracted to Native ways of healing. Western and Native approaches to healing may seem incompatible—linear-mechanical, biological or genetic causes versus interdependent, community and natural world imbalances—but there is a way to integrate them, to see and walk in two worlds. Not easily and not without pushback perhaps, but there is a way. Our two guests, one Native, one non-Native, have both been powerfully influenced and transformed by Indigenous wisdom and also other ways of knowing and have done the work to integrate and implement a more holistic vision of medicine. Join us as we explore how to integrate healing traditions on the next Circle for Original Thinking podcast.
Lewis Mehl-Madrona, MD, graduated from Stanford University School of Medicine where he trained in family medicine, psychiatry, and clinical psychology. He has been on the faculties of several medical schools, most recently as associate professor of family medicine at the University of New England. He continues to work with aboriginal communities to develop uniquely aboriginal styles of healing and health care for use in those communities. He is the author of Coyote Medicine, Coyote Healing, and Coyote Wisdom, a trilogy of books on what Native culture has to offer the modern world. He has also written Narrative Medicine, Healing the Mind through the Power of Story among others, and his most recent book is with Barbara Mainguy, Remapping Your Mind: the Neuroscience of Self-Transformation through Story. Lewis currently works with Wabanaki Public Health and Wellness, which serves the five tribes of Maine. You can find his near weekly blog on
futurehealth.org David Kopacz, MD of Polish, Welsh, and Northern European descent, works as a psychiatrist in Primary Care Mental Health Integration at Puget Sound Veterans Affairs (VA) in Seattle. He is a National Education Champion with the VA Office of Patient Centered Care & Cultural Transformation. David is an Assistant Professor at University of Washington and is certified through the American Boards of: Psychiatry & Neurology; Integrative & Holistic Medicine; and Integrative Medicine. He did his training through University of Illinois and has worked in Illinois, Nebraska, Washington state, and New Zealand. David is the author of
Re-humanizing Medicine: A Holistic Framework for Transforming Your Self, Your Practice and the Culture of Medicine, and with co-author Joseph Rael (Beautiful Painted Arrow),
Walking the Medicine Wheel: Healing Trauma & PTSD;
Becoming Medicine: Pathways of Initiation into a Living Spirituality; and
Becoming Who You Are: Beautiful Painted Arrow’s Life & Lessons.
https://www.davidkopacz.com/
https://beingfullyhuman.com/
Blog:
Becoming Medicine by David Kopacz