circle of healing: traditional storytelling, part one

Circle of Healing: Traditional Storytelling, Part OneAuthor(s): LouAnn BensonSource: Arctic Anthropology, Vol. 40, No. 2 (2003), pp. 9-13Published by: University of Wisconsin PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40316583 .

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Circle of Healing: Traditional Storytelling, Part One

LouAnn Benson

Introduction. The session began with three presenters - LouAnn Benson, Walter Porter, and Lisa Dolchok - all of whom are or have been affiliated with the Circle of Healing Program at Southcen- tral Foundation in Anchorage, Alaska. The Southcentral Foundation is a Native Health Corporation that administers what used to be the Indian Health Service Hospital and Medical Center. In the Cir- cle of Healing Program, the Southcentral Foundation has designed and implemented an approach to health care that allows its patients simultaneously to access Western medicine, traditional Native

healing, and other alternative approaches to health care, such as acupuncture. An important figure in this effort is Dr. Robert Morgan, a psychologist who has worked with the program for several

years, and who helped suggest presenters for this part of the program. Originally, Bob planned to be present in Quebec City, but family priorities meant a change in plans. Bob's absence had a silver

lining, however, because in his stead he sent LouAnn Benson, one of his able colleagues, who talked about the program from the perspective of an insider. WHA

Good Morning. My name is LouAnn. I'm from the Chookaneidee tribe. I'm an Alaska Native, Tlingit. I grew up in Sitka, Alaska, and currently reside in Anchorage. I would like to acknowledge first the contribution from my mother, who is very instru- mental in that she gave up a lot in her life to bring me up. I also acknowledge my grandmothers and my father.

What I am doing here is part academic and part heart, so FU name the academic part first. I worked for Southcentral Foundation in the traditional healing program in Anchorage, Alaska. Part of my job was to work on the concept of the "Circle of Healing" with Dr. Robert Morgan. The concept of the Circle of Healing is an integrative approach to using allopathic medicine, which is called "traditional medicine," but is not traditional Native medicine - it's [referring to] the physicians, nurses,

hospitals - and integrated medicine, which is the alternative medicine, and traditional Native medicine. I was assistant to the first tribal doctor to be certified in traditional Native medicine in Alaska. As far as I know, there aren't any others in the United States who have been certified. It's been a long process, and I've actually had the easy part. The staff was working together for ten years before I got there, lisa is our next and esteemed tribal doctor, the sec- ond person certified in December. What I got to do was work on the Circle of Healing. It's a concept that we developed that integrates all three disciplines for the benefit of our Native recipients, or it can be applied anywhere. It's not strictly for Na- tives.

The Circle of Healing involves bringing the three disciplines together, having them work together with one pivotal person that we call the

LouAnn Benson. Formerly with Southcentral Foundation, Anchorage, Alaska Currently a graduate student at Antioch University Seattle

Address: 21303 60th Avenue West, Apt. 106, Edmonds, Washington 98026

ARCTIC ANTHROPOLOGY Vol. 40, No. 2, pp. 9-13, 2003 ISSN 0066-6939 © 2003 by the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System



1 0 Arctic Anthropology 40:2

Pathfinder. The Pathfinder is well versed in all three disciplines, and meets with the patient. We are hop- ing to get a grant to develop a private project that would involve fifty people. What we would do is this. A lot of times in the Native Hospital we have people who are chronically ill or have chronic pain. The tribal doctor often sees these people. They've been through the system. They've had all kinds of tests. Nothing seems to help them. In the Circle of Healing, the Pathfinder and the patient get together. They work with the three disciplines on a plan for wellness, and the disciplines come together with the patient for their healing. A patient information center, a center where the patient is taught how to use the Internet and how to access library information for their own wellness, is also part of the Circle of Healing. A concept of the Circle of Healing is that once we work with a patient and get them to a point of wellness and being able to take responsibility for their own wellness, then we will also involve their families, and from their families, the community.

As Native people we've always been involved in research projects that teach that Western medicine is the only way. Go get a pill and get well. And we've forgotten what our grandmothers knew about how to stay healthy. What foods to eat.

This is our logo for the Circle of Healing. It involves prevention, outpatient, inpatient, and after- care, and includes allopathic, tribal medicine, and alternative medicine. While this concept of the Cir- cle of Healing is not implemented in fall by the Southcentral Foundation, parts of it are being implemented.

We also belong to another organization called Dinlishla in Alaska. People were asking what traditional medicine is and wanted to certify more tribal doctors in a Western sense. That's something we really don't want to do, to make a definition of what is a tribal doctor and a traditional healer, but we're kind of being forced to look at it. Traditional medicine involves a lot of different things. While working with the Circle of Healing, one of the things that we're beginning to find out is that there are other underlying issues involved, rather than just being healthy physically.

I've been working with Eduardo Duran. He wrote the book Native American Post-Colonial Psychology (1996) and he has a clinic in Oakland, California. It's been a real interesting process reading his book. It took me several weeks to read it, and it's not very long. It's quite short, but because of the issues he raised in it, it was really hard. I had to digest it for a while, before I could con- tinue reading it.

In 1990 the Department of Health and Human Services' report on Healthy People 2000 stated that, "The six major causes of early death in Native Americans and Alaska Natives are unintended inju-

ries, cirrhosis, homicide, suicide, pneumonia and complications of diabetes. Alcohol and obesity are major risk factors for the Native American popula- tion." Well, we all know that, right? That's nothing new, and it's nothing new in Canada either, I'm sure. One of the things they said, though, in this report was that the "Indian Health Service, as well as the state and local health departments, are working with Native American communities to develop a program that will meet these health challenges by recognizing and incorporating American Indians and Alaska Native traditions, cultures, and values into the community health care programs. Health care providers are becoming more effective in meet- ing these needs of various diverse minorities." That's an interesting statement, because we've been working with traditional healing for a long time, and one of the things that I've observed is that it's a hard process. We work against Western medicine often, and we find that we're paid lip service. We know these things about what's going on. Why is this happening? Why is this happening?

One of the things Eduardo Duran says in his book is that Alaska Natives have been suffering from "soul wounds," the betrayal of trust experi- enced by Native Americans since the introduction of Europeans into the Americas. The accumulation of intergenerational trauma caused by European genocide - the taking of lives, taking of land, de- meaning of Native peoples, and the taking of cultural identity, has been very devastating, and we know that. I'm standing up here, and I feel like I'm preaching to the choir. I've heard this over and over again throughout this conference including what is happening in Alaska.

Part of my job is working in traditional healing, and now I've moved to the women's wellness program. I do the traditional wellness portion. I do storytelling and relaxation techniques, and I teach Native traditional wellness, so to speak. What I do, really, is help the women to remember what happened when they grew up, what they learned, and remind them of who they are, and that they're valu- able, wonderful assets to society. One of the things I wanted to show is one of the things I do with my work. I guess I'll show you now.

It's a volunteer program of women coming once a week for 12 weeks, two hours a week. Of the 31 women who started the program, 28 finished, which is really amazing. That's an amazing figure, and what happened is that instead of preaching to the women, we asked them to bring in what they knew and to remember what they knew. We partici- pated and didn't stand up lecturing to them.

So I'm going to do a little drumming for you. If you want to, you can sit back and relax and close your eyes. Just take a minute and breathe, and I'll do the same. (Starts drumming) I take these women back, and I say, "Close your eyes, listen to the



Benson: Circle of Healing, Part One 11

drum, and remember that time. For me it was when I was sitting by my grandmother, and she's sewing, or we're at the smokehouse turning the fish." (Steady rhythmic drumming for about two minutes) "Does that feel good?"

So those are the kinds of things I do for the women in my program. One of the things that I found in studying in the Circle of Healing is what a lot of people have said already in the conference - that as Native people we need to work with each other. In our programs we need to hire Native people who know traditional values, who not only know traditional values, but practice them in their lives.

There is a book that was put out by the Sno- homish tribe. It's called Tribal Mental Health: A Gathering of Wisdoms (1991). Part of what they identify in it is that not only do the mental health workers have access to traditional healing systems, but also they practice them. One of the things that they listed as a priority was respect for each client's right to choose a personal religious or spiritual path. Many Native cultures have been decimated by other religious values, or are in a state of confusion. That's not to say that having another religion is a bad thing. I personally think whatever works for you is great, and that what the statement says is to respect personal religious and spiritual paths. "Rec- ognizing what religious and spiritual dimensions of life are and their importance for balancing mental health, consulting with traditional healers concern- ing the client's mental health and spiritual need when culturally appropriate."

That's where the traditional healers and tribal doctors come in for us. Lisa works with a lot of people on mental health issues. The lady I worked with before I moved, her name is Rita Blumenstein. Do you know her? She's traveled throughout the world, and she does mental health work and also body manipulation and energy work. In my work with her, what I found was that we had women coming in who were my age and a little younger, little older, and had chronic pain. The underlying issue, though, was that they have had some form of abuse in their lives when they were younger, some kind of trauma to their system. As a Native woman coming into the Western system, going to the doctor, you have 15 minutes. That's the time allowed. And as a Native women coming into a system that has been notoriously abusive to you throughout your whole life, you have 15 minutes to go in and say what's wrong with you. You're never going to say it. It's not going to happen.

So they come and see the tribal doctor, and the tribal doctor's office hour is one hour. What happens there is kind of like going into a living room, going into your grandmother's house and vis- iting. Patients sit there, and she talks to them, and she discloses parts of herself, which is something different from what you learn in psychology school,

where they teach you don't disclose your life to your client. They get comfortable. Sometimes she does energy work and body manipulation. Some- times she doesn't. Sometimes she just sits there and listens. And what happens in that process is they begin to talk about what's going on, what's happening in their lives. And they come back and talk more, and pretty soon we're finding out that it's something that happened to them when they were younger. What you don't deal with manifests in your body someplace through chronic pain, arthri- tis, or whatever. So traditional medicine works really well for a lot of people, especially Native women.

Also we have people in the community who do like Louise. They do prayer. [Louise Profiet- LeBlanc, a Tuchone storyteller, opened the session in which this presentation was given with a prayer.] Some people do songs and drums, accessing the community around us. There are several drumming groups in Anchorage. One of the things we need to have is a resource, not only in a government facility like the hospital, but in the community. We need to be a resource that reaches out to the community and uses all those things that are there.

Taking responsibility for our own community is really important. In one important part of Edu- ardo Duran's book he talks about community and consulting services and what needs to happen there with people. In our own communities we need leaders who take charge and lead, who work with consulting services. In the Circle of Healing, we work together and use the best of both worlds. The Native community needs to have ownership of what's going on. That's really important for the health and wellness of Native communities. We need to have ownership of what's going on. We need to work with the consultants that come in and help us design different things that we want. People who come in, I think, need to be there with us for a while, and live with us, and see what's happening in the community. Because there's a lot of uncon- scious stuff that happens that if they're there for only 30 minutes, an hour, two days or whatever, they're not going to see it. They're not going to see that need that we have. So that opportunity is lost.

In the Circle of Healing, like everything else that happens in the Native communities, it goes in a circle. We need to use everything. I listen to people talk about Native traditions and other things and have heard the speakers today. All those things need to work together. We all need to work together and recognize the need and keep our focus on what it is we really want, not to have personal ownership, but to have community ownership.

Having said all that, I have a little story to tell you about this tri-discipline team and how working together can help in the community. I'll just read it to you.



12 Arctic Anthropology 40:2

Once there was a little girl who grew up in an Indian village. Her name was Gaunteen. Gaunteen had a mother and father, two grandmothers, and a grandpa, and many aunts and uncles. When Gaun- teen was little, it was a time of great change. Her people no longer lived like they once did, when they were fishing, hunting, gathering, and trading. The white man had come years before Gaunteen was born. Gaunteen's father was raised up to be a traditional leader, but when he was a teenager, he was sent away to school to get an education. And during this time, every time he spoke his language or did traditional stuff, he was punished. It was very confusing for Gaunteen's father.

As Gaunteen grew, she watched her father, a fisherman, with every fiber of his being try to fit into the white man's world. He worked at the white man's job, eight hours a day. When the seasons changed, and it was time to go fishing, he couldn't ignore his instinct, it was too strong. He would quit his job. Gaunteen's mother would be very upset. He would go purse seining with his father and be free again. He soon realized that he was not free really. There were rules and regulations that limited how much he could take, when he could fish. The fish were being fished off by the West Coast fishermen and by the big ocean-going fish processors' boats.

And to add insult to injury, the Fish and Game thought that they knew better than the people who had been there for thousands of years. Gaun- teen watched them dam up creeks and rivers, so the salmon could not go up, because the Fish and Game said, "This is how we want to do it." Gaunteen's father was very angry watching the fish die in front of the creek. He wanted to dynamite it, but Gaunteen's mother said, "No, you'll go to jail." He couldn't understand why we couldn't go and gather the fish. They said it was because it was unfair to the fishermen. How ironic! Now years later the fish no longer go up the creek.

When Gaunteen was little, she would sit by her paternal grandmother on a little wooden step stool and watch her sew, and grandma would tell her stories and show her how to sew and weave. The stories that grandma told were ones of animals and the land. Some of them would be at night and would be of the Kush Daa Kaa, the Tlingit name for the land otter, the bogeyman. At that time Gaunteen loved the stories, and thought they were just stories, but now she realizes that the lessons were woven into the stories, the lessons of respect and love. The lessons of how one should act, lessons of how to make something, what to plant, when to pick. Sto- ries of creation and respect for one another. Gaun- teen grew up with grandma and grandpa living just down the hill from her. There was a safe place to go. No matter what, grandma loved you. A place of crackers, butter, and jam, and a place of smoked salmon, "mmm." A place where she was not in the

way, and she could help tan the seal skins with flour and water until it was just soft as a baby's bot- tom. A place where, when grandpa came home from days out fishing, with his stubbly whiskers, he would grab up Gaunteen and her sisters, and hug them and rub his cheek against theirs, until they were giggling all over the place. And grandma would say, "Du, that's enough."

When Gaunteen was old enough, she went to school. She hated to leave home. She was shy. Soon she liked school. She played with her schoolmates, but one year after the summer vacation, she re- turned to school. Gaunteen was entering the third grade. Suddenly the schoolmates, who were her friends last year, were calling her names. Names like "Dirty Indian," "Dumb Indian," and so on. This was very confusing. Gaunteen didn't understand. Why were these same people who were friends calling her names? She soon got the message. It was because she was Tlingit. But why, I don't understand? She grew up all those years living with people who did not like her, who would not allow her to partic- ipate. Throughout the years she grew up in a racist town and lived with family secrets, because there were secrets in the family that weren't told.

Gaunteen went away to college because she was not a dumb Indian. The first year of college, free from everything around her, Gaunteen learned how to drink. Drinking was lots of fun. No, it's sad- ness, it's anger. Booze, drugs, men, what happened?

Getting married. Wait. No wait. Having kids, "No wait, I have to do and see." Gaunteen's husband was an abuser. "Gaun-

teen, you're nothing!" Smack. "You'll not leave because I'll keep the children." Smack.

"It's only 'cause he's drinking," Liar. It's because he wants to consume you.

"He's dead, he drank himself to death. I'm free." Gaunteen said.

"Lost I don't know what to do," Gaunteen said. "What happened?"

"I married another abuser" she said. "Oh no. Help."

"Free again." "I need help. I love my children. I can't let them hurt."

Years later, many hours of counseling, and remembering grandma's words, still free. Gaunteen finds her purpose working with human beings, teaching, remembering, showing them how to love themselves, how to value themselves using traditions and ceremonies. Teaching, journeying, helping them to find lost souls, parts. Gaunteen is free.

Now Gaunteen's story is not through. She has many years to go. And working with people and being open and showing love to herself and love to other people. Learning new things, there is lots of hope, hope for the children. Much more hope than Gaunteen's mother had. She lived in a time when being a Native woman was very, very difficult. A



Benson: Circle of Healing, Part One 13

time in the 1930s and 1940s when Native women where less than the dog down the street. A time when there were signs that said "No dogs, No Na- tives" at the restaurants.

Remember who you are and where you came from. If there isn't a memory there, there are always people like my friend Lisa, here, and others like Louise who are there to tell you, others who can help you start the learning process of knowing how proud you can be about who you are, where you came from, and how the world is changing these days.

Long ago being a Native was not such a good thing. Now we have people coming and asking us for information, like what was the weather like back then. Global warming is happening. Julie Cruik- shank, who has made it part of her life to come and study and use the information, spoke about it yes- terday. It is really an awesome thing. So there is hope. There are wonderful programs out there, dealing with the grief and pain of intergenerational trauma that has happened to Native people. Recog- nizing that, offering traditional methods of dealing with it along with Western methods, using the best

of both worlds, it is very important that we recognize everything has a purpose. Everyone here has a gift to give, no matter who you are, no matter if it's the drunk on the street asking for money. We all have gifts. Everyone has one. Most everyone has more than one. Becoming who you were truly meant to be on this earth is acknowledging the Cre- ator's power, and saying thank you for the gift, thank you for life, thank you for being who you are. And thank you for coming and listening.

References Department of Health and Human Services 1990 Healthy People 2000. Washington, D.C.: Office of

Disease Prevention and Health Promotion.

Duran, Eduardo and Bonnie Duran 1996 Native American Postcolonial Psychology. Al-

bany: State University of New York Press.

Swinomish Tribal Mental Health Project 1991 Tribal Mental Health: A Gathering of Wisdoms-

A Cultural Perspective. Washington: The Swi- nomish Tribal Community.



circle of healing: traditional storytelling, part one

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