American Shaman: An Odyssey of Global Healing Traditions
by Kottler, Jeffrey A. and Jon Carlson with Bradford Kenney
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 New York and Hove: Brunner-Routledge, 2004. 260 pp. 4 pp.Ref. US$16.95The collaboration of three learned, well-qualified men has resulted in a complete textbook on the healing traditions of the shaman. These men present an informative, biographic adventure story, showing readers the mystery and playfulness of shamanism. Kottler and Carlson teamed up with Kenney to document his work as a shaman and his visits with some of the outstanding healers in the world. Realizing that science has not adequately answered many of life's hardest questions, these three embarked on a journey to answer the questions of how people transform themselves and stay transformed. They do an amazing job exploring this topic. The book is well organized, one part describing concepts, and one part applying concepts to helping and healing.
Explaining his fundamental belief in the power of love for transforming pain, Keeney acknowledges his roots, which enabled him to embrace shamanism with the following testament,
There is an ancient custom, practiced by most indigenous cultures, that begins or ends a story by recognizing those who are an inseparable part of it. As a former family systems therapist, I, too, enthusiastically underscore the importance of my family context. Raised by a country preacher father and grandfather; a school teacher mother; a farmer, inventor, and construction worker grandfather; and hard-laboring grandmothers, I was taught to see how the suffering of everyday life could be embraced with an open, caring heart and become transformed into soulful grace. They, like the global shamans and healers I met throughout the world, emphasized that love is the greatest teacher. (p. 257).
Kenney attended MIT to pursue a career in biomedical research, but became interested in psychology. Subsequently, he dropped out of MIT, played jazz piano, and read voraciously on the subjects of philosophy and cybernetics. Kenney became a therapist, was the innovator of resource-focused therapy, and taught and wrote on this subject, while producing videotapes demonstrating psychological theories in action. Keeney remained an academic while studying indigenous healing, and became a shaman. He traveled around the world to document the practices of prominent healers, and founded the Ringing Rocks Foundation to further the knowledge of alternative healing in diverse cultural settings. (p. xiii.).
Of healing in the Western world, Kenney suggest that psychotherapy and psychology are exclusionary and arrogant. (p. 120). He believes them exclusionary because healing is reserved for the privileged who use the standard methods that stifle creativity and imagination, and arrogant because the therapists consider themselves separate from and above the clients, and because other cultures' wisdom is not acknowledged, much less respected.
Some revealing observations about shamans are mentioned in the book: Shamans disagree among themselves and express many different points of view, (p. 125); shamans have great reverence for play, (p. 127); the world of spirits is considered sacred, and not to be understood, but to be honored, (p. 133). These ideas are thought provoking for readers and offer many insights to ponder.
Kenney proposes that helpers and healers create certain rituals for their clients, which expand their sense of awe, wonder and surprise. (p. 154). In addition, Kenney suggests tips on how to activate and nourish a sense of mystery in individuals' lives:
- Introduce more rhythm, or natural flow into your life;
- Learn to gently (and sometimes wildly) rock your body;
- Dance, think, and pray in the dark;
- Bring on the music;
- Faithfully write down a request for guidance and carry it with you;
- Bring more absurdity into daily rituals;
- Be irreverent with the why questions in your life; and
- Remind yourself, constantly, that you will never understand the big things in life (p. 154).
In the indigenous traditions, the shaman is considered a person with knowledge of botany, physiology, theology and performing arts, as well as social work, psychiatry and counseling. (p. 159). Pointing out why this would not work in the United States, Kenney explains that licensure and certification, ethical guidelines, standards of practice, as well as state and federal laws that tell practitioners what they can and cannot do as part of their job limit the scope of practice. (p. 163). The book shows readers how to step outside set ways of thinking to examine the potential of the indigenous healing practices for use in therapeutic settings in this country. Kenney beautifully sums up our creativity in this area, "We should be aware of the wind, and how it reminds us of the inventiveness that flows naturally when it is evoked by another who cares enough to call it out." (p. 253). Healers and helpers are the ones meant to care sufficiently to summon imagination from their clients, and Kenney's focus on the client's strengths and resources, invites those professionals in the Western culture to summon the mystery and originality from others that is inherent in everyone.
This book is technical, yet artful, graphic in detail, and sensitive in analogies. It tells the tale of a traditional shaman's powerful wisdom, and can be used by professionals or any readers looking for adventure. It is an entertaining book because of the spellbinding stories it contains, and informative by its discussions on how to use creativity in one's practice to infuse fascination with life into the therapeutic setting.
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