WOUNDED HEALER
A SHAMANIC PATH TO FREEDOM
The state commonly labeled as “manic-depression” is described here not as a mental illness, but as a profound psychological process—one Jung saw as needing completion in order to reset the psyche.
In this view, extreme mood states represent a deep encounter with the unconscious rather than a chronic disease to be suppressed.
Contemporary psychiatry is portrayed as interrupting this inner process by chemically numbing the psyche, which is said to cause serious harm to the individual.
• The text argues that, because the mental health system is heavily financed by pharmaceutical companies, profit tends to take precedence over genuine healing.
Authors such as John Perry, R.D. Laing, Thomas Szasz, Roberto Assagioli, and Carl Jung are invoked to support the idea that psychotic or manic breaks can be terrifying but meaningful encounters with the unconscious, occurring without a strong enough ego to contain the experience.
From this standpoint, such crises are not viewed as “illnesses” but as destabilizing, potentially transformative psychological events
Responsibility is ultimately placed on each person to investigate, question, and choose a path of healing rather than automatically accepting drug-centered care
Insider's view of Shamanic initiation
Insider's view of Shamanic initiation
Your way forward will often be met with hostility, doubt, and misunderstanding.
• Those who have never entered this altered state of consciousness—including many mental health professionals and clergy—typically have no inner reference point from which to truly help
The initial phase of this experience generally requires about six weeks for the individual to begin reorienting to what is happening.
Periods of seclusion, along with supportive changes in diet and lifestyle, are presented as essential elements of the healing process
In earlier decades, dedicated centers such as Diabasis House, Soteria House, The Agnews Project, Burch House, and I‑Ward were created to support this process and consistently showed outcomes that validated a non‑medication approach
These programs were eventually closed due to lack of funding, while the conventional medical model, worth billions of dollars, was expanded because it generated profit rather than simple healing.
Confronting a billion‑dollar system is extremely difficult and often futile.
A more empowering choice is to do your own research and consciously design a personal system of healing that aligns with your experience and values.
A INITIATION PROCESS
Mistaken for Mental Illness
WHAT IS SHAMANISM ?
Shamanism is the world’s oldest spiritual curing modality, is cross-cultural and dates back at least 40,000 years.
Because it is a spiritual modality, the aim of shamanism is to offer spiritual cures. Equally important, shamanism helps people to answer important questions about their lives.
For people who have been working with different spiritual techniques and modalities for some time, the notion that “all illness begins as spiritual dis-ease” is a common one.
In shamanism, we not only believe that all illness is rooted in power loss, we believe that it is the Helping Spirits who cure illness. Regardless how the illness presents itself the approach is the same. The practioner journey's to the spirit world to seek both knowledge and assistance. The practitioner works with the compassionate Helping Spirits as they dictate, and the clients receive their individual cures.
In indigenous cultures a man or woman may be called to the path of the shaman by the spirits themselves. This is happening today as many individuals are experiencing a 'tear' in the fabric of our accepted reality. One such 'tear' has been labeled 'Bi-polar illness' with devastating results to individuals and their families. Labeled as a mental illness it denies the individual validation of their 'calling' which is the beginning of the initiatory process.
The indigenous cultures puts these individuals in the hands of an older shaman, to be trained through theoretical and practical instruction. and the illness is often healed. Once they have cured themselves than they become the 'wounded healer' their understanding of the working components from the inside allows them insight to guide others through that labyrinth.
SHAMANISM TODAY
Since the West overwhelmingly lost its shamanic knowledge centuries ago due to religious oppression, the Foundation for Shamanic Studies programs in core shamanism are particularly intended for Westerners to reacquire access to their rightful spiritual heritage through quality workshops and training courses. Training in core shamanism includes teaching students to alter their consciousness through classic shamanic non-drug techniques such as sonic driving, especially in the form of repetitive drumming, so that they can discover their own hidden spiritual resources, transform their lives, and learn how to help others. Core shamanism does not focus on ceremonies, such as those of Native American medicine men and women, persons who do both shamanism and ceremonial work.
I