Basis for Shamanistic Therapies

Chapter 5:  Shamanistic Therapies
Altering Consciousness as a Basis for Shamanistic Therapies

"The biological basis of the IMC allowed shamanistic healing practices to emerge spontaneously from a wide variety of circumstances that alter consciousness and provide both general and specific adaptive consequences.

Understanding the therapeutic effects derived from altering consciousness requires recognition that a variety of drug and nondrug induction procedures engage the same endogenous physiological processes and induce common physiological changes that produce healing responses.

These general physiological dynamics of the IMC - parasympathetic dominance, interhemispheric synchronization, and limbic-frontal integration - have inherent therapeutic effects.  The effects reflect activation of aspects of the paleomammalian brain, specifically the hippocampal-septal region, the hypothalamus, and related areas that regulate emotions,  self, and other perceptions, and the balance between the sympathetic and parasympathetic divisions of the autonomic nervous system (ANS) (p. 186)."

Winkelman, Michael M. (2010).  Shamanism:  A Biopsychosocial Paradigm of Consciousness and Healing.  Santa Barbara: Praeger. 

Integrative Mode of Consciousness (IMC)

"The existence of a universal drive among humans for altering consciousness is strongly supported by cross-cultural research. 

Institutionalized procedures for ritually altering consciousness have been documented in virtually all societies of the world, reflecting a commonality of culture and religion. 

Bourguignon (1968) reported evidence that approximately 90 percent of the societies in a worldwide sample had institutionalized rituals for altering consciousness, suggesting it was likely a cultural universal.

In another cross-cultural study, Winkelman (1986, 1992) found that communal ritual involving ASC (altered states of consciousness) were a cultural universal; all societies have magico-religious practictioners who have their professional roles based in powers derived from the modification of consciousness . . .

Even when there is cultural repression of the IMC, experiences of this realm of consciousness nonetheless manifest spontaneously and idiosyncratically because they reflect a biological basis.

Eliciting the IMC may be achieved in numerous ways, including pushing psychological functions beyond their limits, disrupting subsystems by sensory overload or deprivation, manipulating the autonomic nervous system balance, or focusing or withdrawing attention . . .

There are widespread biases against some forms of altered consciousness in Western society and cultures.  Historically, such manifestations were persecuted through witchcraft accusations.  Western psychology has tended to consider shamanic-type experiences to be pathological or 'primitive,' manifested in the perspectives that meditative states are regressions to infantile levels . . .

A contrastive approach is found in the many cultures that have viewed hallucinogens as entheogens, sacred plants that produce a contact with the divine.  Meditative traditions indicate that altering consciousness provides a variety of adaptive advantages through the development of a more objective perception of the external world . . .

The desire to alter consciousness is an innate, biologically based human drive with adaptive significance, a manifestation of a fundamental homeostatic dynamic of the nervous system . . .

This intensification of the linkages of the lower brain structures, paleo-mammalian brain, and frontal brain structures produces a synthesis of behavior, emotion, and thought . . .

The wide range of procedures used cross-culturally to induce these conditions reflects the ability of diverse agents and conditions to evoke this natural potential of the human brain-mind.  The IMC is a physiologically based mode of organismic functioning and integration that produces a condition of homeostatic balance . . .

The shaman is a technician of consciousness who uses these potentials for acquiring information, healing and personal and social transformation (p. 4-5)." 

Winkelman, Michael M. (2010).  Shamanism:  A Biopsychosocial Paradigm of Consciousness and Healing.  Santa Barbara: Praeger.

The Community & Healing

"...even societies that are disintegrating (e.g., the Siriono) and lack shamanistic healers still carried out collective ceremonial activities involving healing."

Winkelman, Michael M. (2010).  Shamanism:  A Biopsychosocial Paradigm of Consciousness and Healing.  Santa Barbara: Praeger.

Being Mama

Sometimes I feel like I got an MSW and LCSW (and started working on a PhD) just to be my girl's mama.  Lord knows I draw upon every skill and resource I can scrounge up in the dark and difficult moments of motherhood.

My girl is sensitive, so when I dropped her off at school yesterday I said to her:

When you know who you are, no one can tell you otherwise.
Kids can be mean, so be grateful when someone is kind to you.

I don't always know how to handle my girl's BIG feelings.  She said I am "wasteful" with her feelings sometimes.  I love my girl and all that she teaches me - I feel so lucky to raise such a precious soul.

Religion and Self-Healing

"Valle and Prince (1989) proposed that religion elicits self-healing mechanisms through giving people a sense of belongingness that engages feelings of euphoria and omnipotence produced by the body's own morphine-like substances, the endorphins.  Religious healing involves a dynamic function of the psyche that broadens the individual's repertoire of coping abilities.  Valle and Prince characterized religious healing experiences in terms of activations of the non-dominant-hemisphere processes that elicit endogenous healing mechanisms by experiences that reduce uncertainty, anxiety, and depression."

Winkelman, Michael M. (2010).  Shamanism:  A Biopsychosocial Paradigm of Consciousness and Healing.  Santa Barbara: Praeger.

Mechanisms of Shamanistic Therapies

For the last two and a half years, I have been posting reading notes on this blog.  It is my annotated bibliography.  When I am writing a paper, most of the information and references I need are either in my head or on this blog.

These excerpts come from a cool book that I requested from UC Berkeley, so I have to return it soon. The author earned an MPH and PhD and spent most of his career studying the biological bases for traditional healing practices, especially shamanism.  He is a retired professor of Arizona State University and lives in Brazil.  His website is at www.michaelwinkelman.com.

"A basic mechanism in shamanistic healing involves symbolic healing, particularly the use of natural metaphors that represent intrapsychic dynamics and provide a means of producing psychosocial and emotional integration." (p. 184)

"...use of spirit beliefs as representations that provide psychosocial, psychocognitive, emotional and projective mechanisms." (p. 183)

"Neuropeptides and neuroreceptors function as an information network that links body and mind through emotions." (p. 183)

Opioid release stimulates emotional experience and emotional experience stimulates opioid release. (p. 183)

"A biopsychosocial dynamic...produces symbolically induced biological changes by eliciting endogenous healing responses and other recuperative potentials." (p. 183)

"Socialization links symbols and physiological processes, providing a mechanism for ritual therapies to manipulate physiological processes through their relationships with symbols that were established through socialization; this relationship enables them to entrain physiological processes and to produce affective responses. (183-4)

"Spirit manipulation and the mind-body interface play a central role in the management of emotion states particularly anxiety, fear and attachment." (p. 183)

"The community ritual dynamics of shamanic healing also elicit endogenous healing responses. The symbolic and ritual aspects of shamanistic healing practices provide therapeutic mechanisms that elicit the opioid systems and produce psychological and sociophysiological effects related to attachment and bonding.  A neurological basis for ritual structure is illustrated by the cross-cultural similarities in the characteristics of ritual and their homologies with obsessive-compulsive disorder.  This illustrates that one basis for shamanistic healing lies in manipulation of the processes of the R-complex (reptilian brain) and the paleomammalian brain." (p. 184)

Winkelman, Michael M. (2010).  Shamanism:  A Biopsychosocial Paradigm of Consciousness and Healing.  Santa Barbara: Praeger.

Check-In

I was born an old lady.  So 43 years later, I am practically ancient.  I'm grateful for that gift.

Sometimes social, emotional and intellectual development are asynchronous.  This can be troubling and require work toward integration.  Sometimes mind, body, spirit and soul are not aligned and requires work toward integration.

This is all part of my journey.  I stop repeatedly to give thanks to all my helpers - in this realm and the next:

• All my parents - biological and adopted
• My family of origin
• My extended family
• My current nuclear family
• My family of choice
• My true friends and supportive acquaintances
• My healers (massage therapists, acupressure and acupuncture practitioners, chiropractor, energy healers, shamanic practitioner, doctors, orthodontist, dentist & dental hygienists, psychologists and psychiatrist)
• My mentors (Jesus, Jolene Swain, Rose Monteiro, Jane Addams, Irvin Yalom, Carl Rogers, Reevah Simon, Iyanla Vanzant, Oprah Winfrey, Roberto Gutierrez, Norman V. Peale, Napolean Hill, Robert Cordova, Albert Einstein, Steve Jobs, Buddha, Jeff Koob, Emmy Werner, Karen Sorensen, Karin Elliott Brown, Pauline Agbayani, Pia Escudero, Sheryl Kataoka, Stuart Kirk, Hector Myers, Deborah Glik, Todd Franke, Aurora Jackson).  Some of my mentors I have never met, but their writing has profoundly shaped my thinking.
• My ancestors
• My spirit animal helpers
• My guardian angels
• My personal trainers, yoga and dance class teachers
• Books
• Art
• Nature
• Music
• Dance
• Laughter and humor
• Drumming
• and nourishing food.

When moments become dark and difficult, I call on my helpers to figure things out.  I am all the time adding to my bag of tricks.  I am always willing to ask for help.  It is how I got here from way over there.