A lot. Shamanism can teach psychotherapy that the spirits and the shamanic worlds are real and that much of our pain comes from our disconnection from nature; psychotherapy can teach shamanism about the under-worldUnder-world. The realm of our repressed and disowned psychic energies, personal and collective: Jung’s Shadow and the unconscious, mapped shamanically. A part of the middle-world, created by the Fall, not the Lower-World, and psychotherapy’s proper territory rather than shamanism’s. Read the full answer, the fort-holderFort-holder. A protective part of the self that stayed behind to ‘man the fort’ when we were wounded: the inner critic, perfectionist, pusher, pleaser: the loyal soldier still fighting a war that ended long ago. Usually the part that sent an orphan away, so no deep healing holds without its consent; befriended, never extracted. Read the full answer, ethics and working in a way that empowers people. They should remain different disciplines with their own skills, neither one watered down into the other, and neither replaces medical care.
How is shamanism connected with psychotherapy? #
They overlap, and they differ. Some methods look alike: “The guided visualisations and imagery employed by some psychotherapists may, on the surface, appear to be similar to shamanic journeying, for example.” In the past this led some psychotherapists to see shamanism as an early form of their own work, and some shamans to distance themselves from psychotherapy. Both sides would do well to listen to each other, for the reality is that, whilst there are hugely significant and important differences between the two disciplines, there are also hugely significant and important areas of overlap as well.1
What can shamanism offer psychotherapy? #
A world bigger than the human. “From a shamanic point of view, the problem with much psychotherapy is its tendency to reduce everything down to the human level.” Most therapy happens indoors and centres on human relationships, and “Awareness of the Upper-WorldUpper-World. The realm of Father Sky and of Spirit: spacious, rarefied and clear, layered in tiers, offering not escape but perspective. Not better than the Lower-World: we ascend rooted, and bring the gifts back down. Read the full answer tends to be rare, and awareness of the Lower-WorldLower-World. The realm of Mother Earth: pure, unspoilt, wild nature, with no technology and no agriculture. Home of the Peoples and of our own Soul, and completely safe: feeling threatened in a journey is a reliable sign of not having reached it. Read the full answer usually non-existent.”2 Spirits are usually seen as parts of the psyche, and journeys as imagination, so psychotherapy “misses the true scope, validity, and power of the shamanic experience and practice.”3
None of this is built into being a therapist. “For there is absolutely nothing about being a psychotherapist that is incompatible with also accepting that spirits are real.”4 Therapeutic Shamanism does not confuse the unconscious with the shamanic worlds: “The unconscious (the under-world) and the shamanic Upper and Lower Worlds, are not the same thing.”5 And shamanism shows where much of our pain comes from: “What shamanism shows us is that much of the pain that we feel is, in fact, caused by our disconnection from the more-than-human, and from nature.”6
What can psychotherapy offer shamanism? #
First, the knowledge that not every ‘spirit’ is a spirit. In hunter-gatherer times it was safe enough to assume the spirits were real, but “These days, what people think are spirits are sometimes not real spirits at all.”7 Someone tormented by inner voices may be facing real beings, or repressed parts of their own psyche, or both. “The old-style traditional shamanic assumption that the demons are always real no longer holds true, and is no longer a safe assumption. Acting as if it is true can cause great harm.”8
Second, the fort-holder: its existence and nature is another major thing shamanism can learn from psychotherapy.9 Where the part of us that sent a soul partSoul-part. A small-s, middle-world part of the self that can be lost (sent away) and can be retrieved. Not the capital-S Soul. Read the full answer away does not want it back, then unless this conflict is addressed a soul retrieval “is at best likely to be only partially effective, and unlikely to be permanent.”10 See What are child, orphan, fort-holder and protector parts?
Why do ethics and power matter? #
Because abuse of power is part of the FallThe Fall. The catastrophe at the root of the whole diagnosis: the shift from animist, egalitarian hunter-gatherer life to owning, agricultural Taker culture. In domesticating other species we domesticated ourselves, cutting ourselves off from Mother Earth (Power-loss) and from parts of our own nature (soul-loss). When dated precisely, the Fall begins with the first city-state cultures, around 4000 BCE (Domestication begins earlier, with the Neolithic). A sickness, not our true nature. ‘Fallen culture’ is used interchangeably with Taker culture; the Great Rupture is a looser alternate name. Read the full answer, and psychotherapy has learnt how to guard against it. Psychotherapy developed codes of ethics and practice, and “Modern shamanism needs to wake up and do the same.” “Good ethics should be at the heart of any modern shamanic practice.”11 The humanistic therapies moved away from the therapist having power over the client, and so “in Therapeutic Shamanism, when doing any kind of healing work for anyone else, the aim is always to seek to help empower the other person, and never to disempower them.”12
The image Therapeutic Shamanism uses is of the owl and the sparrow. “A truly wise owl is one who sits and listens to the sparrow, and helps the sparrow to find its own inner voice and authority, and make its own decisions.”13 See How does animism understand power and hierarchy?
How is shamanic healing different from psychotherapy? #
Each has its own specialism, and its own way of working: “each can also do things the other cannot do well. In this way, both have their place.”14 Psychotherapy works with the under-world and the everyday self; shamanism treats soul loss and Power-loss, and soul retrievalSoul retrieval. Finding an exiled soul-part and inviting it home. In the modern psyche the fort-holder who sent it away must consent first, and the retrieval itself is a beginning: the real work is integration. Read the full answer “is a specialism of shamanism.”15 In shamanic healing it is the GuidesGuides. The Lower-World and Upper-World beings a practitioner works with and learns from, of whom the Power Animal is the first and foremost. True Guides are ethical to their core; the shaman’s power comes from the depth of these bonds, not from the shaman. More about this, not the practitioner, who heal: “The job of the practitioner is to ask for the healing, and then hollow-out and be a vessel (in shamanism, the ‘hollow bone’) that the guides can work through.”16
Journeying can also reach places that talk finds hard to reach. Wounds from before we had words are hard to work with through talking alone, and “Shamanic journeying can also be highly effective in working with pre-verbal material, given that it is largely non-verbal, and can be very somatic, visceral and embodied.”17 See What is shamanic healing?
Where should they remain different? #
Shamanism should stay Spirit-led, and psychotherapy should stay itself. Bringing them together is not merging them into one. Each deserves deep love and respect, and so neither is to be watered down or impoverished.18 A shamanic journey is led by the Guides: “Therapeutic Shamanism is no exception. This is a Spirit-led practice through and through.”19 See Is shamanic journeying imagination, and how are journeys co-created?
Does shamanic healing replace psychotherapy or medical care? #
No. Shamanism and psychotherapy are not substitutes for each other, and many people in the shamanic community “could really do with psychotherapy.”20 As for medical care, shamanism “can almost always safely be used alongside medical treatments. But shamans are generally pragmatists and fully understand the need for medical treatments too. Some things need shamanic medicine, some things need allopathic medicine, and some things need acupuncture, chiropractic, Bowen and other things.”21
Mental health matters too. Someone who finds it hard to keep a grip on everyday reality should not journey for themselves, though they may be helped by “an experienced shamanic practitioner journeying for you, ideally a shamanic practitioner with some understanding and awareness of mental health issues.”22 A good practitioner will “be honest about what they offer and about the limits of what they can do.”23 See Is shamanic journeying safe?
Can bodywork replace psychotherapy? #
The books do not answer this directly, but Therapeutic Shamanism treats the body as essential to healing rather than as a substitute for it. Body-centred psychotherapy is itself a form of psychotherapy, and Paul Francis practises it. Amongst the approaches that suit wounds from before we had words are “the various body-centred psychotherapies”.24 See What is body armouring and what does Reichian work contribute?
