HEALING THE SOUL WOUND

Eduardo Duran has been working as a therapist within Native American communities for over 30 years. His book 'Healing the Soul Wound' addresses the different approaches that are necessary for people who have an indigenous, rather than a modern, world view. And inasmuch as we are all, at bottom, indigenous, I think the approach he has generated can speak to all of us. This would include:

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1/ Ceremony. Making the context sacred. Some simple smudging can achieve this.

2/ Seeing afflictions not as parts of ourselves, that define who we are, but as spirits that are visiting us. His major item here is alcoholism, which you get a lot of amongst Native Americans. He takes issue with the 'I am an acoholic approach' and says no, the spirit of alcohol is visiting you, and it can be a medicine or a poison. You need a new relationship with this spirit, so introduce yourself, make offerings, give thanks, ask the spirit to introduce itself and let's try and move this thing on. This approach immediately changes the clients relationship to the bottle, and makes it harder to drink. Drinking itelf is seen as a ceremony - indeed the whole of life, he maintains, is a ceremony.

Eduardo Duran

3/ So this approach can be applied more widely - to the spirit of fear/anxiety, depression/sadness, suicide (which is traditionally seen as a literalised attempt at transformation), anger, indeed anything you want. And to the spirit of healing itself.

4/ The self is relational, not isolated, as we find in the modern world. So when you introduce yourself to a spirit, you tell them also who your parents and grandparents were/are, and ask the spirit to do the same. And because we are relational, the affliction we are addressing may have been passed down through the family, and we are the ones with the task of healing it. And when we do, it is said, it heals backwards in time for 7 generations, and forwards for the next 7 generations.

5/ The Soul Wound, to which the title refers, is in the case of the Native Americans the collective wound caused by white colonisation. It is not just the trauma of violence, but the attempt to colonise the mind of the Indian with the modern mindset by eg sending them to boarding schools. This also needs addressing in therapy, and helps the individual to understand that their suffering is not because there is something 'wrong' with them, but something they have inherited through the collective past. An equivalent for moderns might be the Protestant Work Ethic, that keeps us busy and getting up early, and doubting ourselves if we do not conform - and judging of those who are 'idle'.

6/ Warrior Soul Wounding. Traditionally, war was seen as a ceremony, and if you killed someone, that was understood as a spirit contract between you. And the taking of life, even in the service of your community, still goes against natural law. So there is healing work to be done, that is not understood amongst returning war veterans, who do not even have a ceremony when they leave the armed services. So in this book, it applies particularly to Native American veterans.

7/ Duran is not afraid to be radical in his ideas. One holy cow he addresses is therapetic boundaries, which he considers in many cases to have a dehumanising effect. Besides, in a traditional situation, the healer would be known intimately by everyone in the village. And this would place more responsibility on the healer to have integrity in all parts of his life, so as not to compromise the healing situation.