In primary care settings, everyone is anxious. Prevalence studies show rates as high as 30% of people at any moment. The German philosopher, Hartmut Rosa, links this to the acceleration that affects every segment of our society which leads to alienation. In the state of alienation, we lose our sense of belonging and our sense of safety. We lose our connectedness to each other.
Indigenous Philosophy emphasizes the role of human relatedness in emotional regulation. We need each other to calm ourselves. Without our social relationships, our anxiety runs away with itself.
Modern life also presents us with tremendous uncertainty. Too many choices can be paralyzing. What if we make the wrong choice? What then?
In our clinical setting, most people respond by requesting medication. In an accelerated society, we want the fast medicine when it's the slow medicine that works best (but more slowly).
We will review the slow medicine from a North American Indigenous perspective, which includes changing story, engaging with community, entering into ceremony, interacting with plant medicines, singing and drumming and dancing, bodywork practices, and more.
Other slow medicines include yoga, t'ai chi, chi gong, biofeedback. We need to help each other get our anxiety under control.
Reading List:
1. Lewis' Coyote Trilogy (Coyote Medicine, Coyote Healing, Coyote Wisdom) -- available through Amazon.
2. Lewis' Healing the Mind through the Power of Story: The Promise of Narrative Psychiatry. Toronto: Bear & Company/Inner Traditions.
3. Barbara's Remapping Your Mind. Toronto: Bear & Company/Inner Traditions
4. Hartmut Rosa's books: Acceleration, Alienation, and Resonance.
Course Content
Presenter
Barbara Mainguy is a psychotherapist in Maine in the United States who works with individuals and groups from the five Indigenous tribes of Maine as well as managing a private practice. She is a graduate of the University of Toronto (philosophy), Concordia University (creative arts therapy) and the University of Maine (clinical social work). She and Lewis have almost completed a new book on Therapeutic Persuasion.
Dr. Lewis Mehl-Madrona is a general practitioner and a psychiatrist who works primarily with Indigenous North Americans in Maine, USA, with Wabanaki Public Health and Wellness. He is interested in narrative and relational approaches as being especially suited to indigenous people but useful for everyone. He is on the clinical faculties of medical schools at the University of New England and the University of Vermont and is associated with Coyote Institute and the University of Maine, in Orono, Maine. His most recent book is Remappng Your Mind.
