Category: Healing

• Christmas

  Christmas Day. I’ve been in bed with a virus for the past couple of days, so I probably should not have been surprised when I awoke this morning at 3:30. (My nose looks a lot like Rudolph’s.) Eventually I got out of bed and wandered through the dark house to the sun room, where I…

  Michael Watson PhD

  December 25, 2014

  Healing, Shamanism

  ceremony, Chanukkah, Christmas, Winter Solstice

• Thanksgiving

  As I write, the season’s first snow is falling in the November night. It is cold and the streets are empty. Downstairs, Jennie is cooking for tomorrows feast. I’m taking a few minutes to write as tomorrow promises to be very busy, being Thanksgiving Day here in the US. Given the news this week from…

  Michael Watson PhD

  November 26, 2014

  First Nations, Shamanism, Social issues

  colonialism, Native American, Shamanism, Thanksgiving

• Silence, Story, and Healing

  The woods are increasingly silent. Now and then a blue jay or a nuthatch calls, or a squirrel scolds. The wind in the trees is low-pitched as it moves through the bare upper branches of the golden-yellow birches and beech trees. As the world grows quiet, our voices fill the evenings with story; it is…

  Michael Watson PhD

  October 13, 2014

  Healing, native american, Shamanism, Stories

  columbus day, healing, Native American, Shamanism, silence, stories

• Sacred Conversations

  Talk therapy did not begin with Freud’s “talking cure”. Rather, strategic conversations have likely always been an important tool in the tool kits of Indigenous healers. My teachers often referred to deep, therapeutic discussions as “wisdom talks,” opportunities to speak with the elders, consider the problems in one’s ways, and, in the process, change one’s…

  Michael Watson PhD

  October 5, 2014

  First Nations, Healing, Psychotherapy, Shamanism

  CBT, psychotherapy, Shamanism, wisdom talks