Coyote Wisdom: The Power of Story in Healing
by Lewis Mehl-Madrona
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Rochester, VT: Bear & Company 2005 230 pp $16.007 pp Notes.
Lewis Mehl-Madrona is certified in family practice, geriatrics and psychiatry, and includes Native American traditions in his practice. Healing through storytelling is the principal approach he shares in this book – of the various Native American ceremonial treatments that he uses.
Mehl-Madrona’s storytelling is rich with the wisdom of his Cherokee grandmother. He seems to have stories available for every possible circumstance and occasion. These tales provide insights into a person’s hidden fears and hurts that often underlie and contribute to or even cause the development of many physical and psychological problems. The stories also suggest a variety of solutions and inspire hope that change is possible.
Through these stories, he helps people discover the inner healing resources that can transform their lives, including their illnesses. He reports dramatic successes – often with people who have struggled for many years with their health issues – including anorexia, lupus (a chronic form of arthritis), victimization through emotional and physical abuse, panic disorder, and more.
What I see as particularly helpful are the suggestions for change that Mehl-Madrona intersperses within the stories. These are very similar to the tales that Milton Erickson used to tell – in the process of hypnotic inductions, with imbedded suggestions that often slipped past the sentinel guardian defenses of his patients.
Mehl-Madronna believes that “if multiple treatments have failed to solve the problem, then we need to consider the context or stage upon which the problem operates.” To his credit, Mehl-Madronna readily admits that not everyone is totally cured through these approaches, as in the following story. For instance, he tells how he worked with Donna, who had suffered with fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome for many years, had visited numerous doctors but had found no cure for her illness. He told Donna a Choctaw version of a story about how fire came to the people.
In this story, the animals suffered because they had no way to keep warm when the weather turned cold. They heard that people the East had fire, but knew these people to be greedy and unlikely to share the fire. Various animals ventured to the East but were unsuccessful in bringing back fire. Finally, the spider succeeded – by creating a clay pot in which to transport it.
Mehl-Madronna offered (among other suggestions sprinkled throughout the story),
Maybe in your own life, Donna, you can find a way to be like Grandmother Spider, the one voted least likely to succeed. You can rely upon your own talents and resources to save the day. We could wonder what those resources might be. We might decide that your spirituality would qualify, that it provides you with a kind of vessel or container, just like Grandmother Spider’s clay pot. (p. 64)
Donna then wrote her own healing story with his help and invited a group of friends for a healing ceremony. She was disappointed that she experienced no apparent benefits following the ceremony. However, she stopped searching for external ‘fixes.’ She was less agitated by her symptoms, more calm and settled within herself. While she did not consider herself to have been substantially helped by this treatment, her friends reported that she was much more present in her interactions with them, much more invested in studies and work.
Mehl-Madronna credits the people he helps for discovering the sources of healing within themselves.
I had long ago abandoned the idea that I did therapy. Therapy contains the idea that I can “treat” someone else, an idea that seems specious and patronizing. I preferred the idea that I could tell stories that might inspire people to change. I saw the Native healers engaged in this same negotiation, a process that has been called ‘reauthoring.’ (p. 3)
Mehl-Madrona is most remarkable for having gained a measure of acceptance for his methods within western medicine.
At some time in our journey through life we all ask these questions. Stories contain our answers. They impose order onto the chaos of our experience. They help us organize our experience in time. They provide a beginning, middle, and ending. They locate our experience within cultural contexts and geographies. They tell us who we are, where we are, and what we are…
Humans of all cultures and historical periods share this problem of uncertainty which is uncomfortable. So we construct stories and tell them over and over to establish certainty.
We physicians think that the stories we tell ourselves about health and disease are fact. … we swallowed the ‘only biology’ story hook, line, and sinker. We need to mature to a larger perspective that encompasses the role of the stories we tell in helping us to transform and to heal ourselves and our communities. We need to understand the power of our negative stories—for example, the ones in which we tell people that they have only six months to live. We need to understand that the context of our stories is as important as what we talk about. (p. 9)
Stories contain the hidden secrets of transformation, the alchemist’s formulas for turning lead into gold. If we hear enough stories about profound transformation, we find ourselves transforming, even in spite of ourselves. While we can’t command transformation, we can create an enriched environment that makes it more possible. (p. 9)
For a book that contains generous portions of wisdom, this book is an easy and enjoyable read.
See also Mehl-Madrona’s earlier books: Coyote Healing and Coyote Medicine.
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