Treating trauma as ghosts: How finding parallels in Indigenous and western healing can improve mental wellness support – U Calgary News
Elders Teaching Series welcomes Piikani Elder Reg Crowshoe on Dec. 7
The effects of traumatic life events are much like ghosts: the consequences will linger with a person, rarely visible and silently influencing them in negative, haunting ways. Beyond a poetic metaphor, these “ghosts” can take on an important role in the healing process for some Indigenous cultures.
Dr. Reg Crowshoe, a Piikani Elder and cultural adviser at the University of Calgary, says his culture’s approach to mental health practice involves dealing with the ghosts that represent emotions or sicknesses we can’t see. He will be sharing his knowledge on intergenerational trauma and mental wellness at the Elders Teaching Series webinar on Dec. 7.
“I would say trauma splits your body from your spirit, and then you start having trouble with emotion,” says Crowshoe, Hon. LLD’01. “And emotion, you can’t see — you can feel it. Fear, frustration, anxiety, even sickness and so on … those are ghosts.”
