Coyote Wisdom: The Power of Story in Healing [Paperback]

Lewis Mehl-Madrona (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1, 2005

An in-depth look at the therapeutic and transformative powers of storytelling in Native American and other cultures

• Explores how to create a healing state of mind using stories

• Includes healing stories from Native American traditions and other cultures from around the world

• By the author of the bestselling Coyote Medicine

Stories are powerful sources of meaning that shape and transform our lives. We tell stories to track our process of personal and spiritual growth and to honor and respect the journeys we have made. Through stories we are provided with experiences of spiritual empowerment that can lead to transformation.

In Coyote Wisdom, Lewis Mehl-Madrona explores the healing use of stories passed down from generation to generation in Native American culture and describes how we can apply this wisdom to empower and transform our own lives. A storytelling approach to transformation starts with how we were created and how we can re-create ourselves through the stories we tell. As we explore the archetypal characters and situations that populate the inner world of our stories, we can experience breakthroughs of healing and even miracles of transformation.

This approach to healing through stories runs counter to the current model of modern psychology. The stories we tell about ourselves may model our lives, but by introducing new characters and plots, we can come to see ourselves in a new way. The author also draws upon the cultures of other indigenous peoples--the Maori, East Africans, Mongolians, Aborigines, and Laplanders--to illustrate the healing use of stories throughout the world.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Mehl-Madrona (M.D., Ph.D.) outlines what he calls "narrative medicine," or a "storied" approach to disease and recovery that can be used in conjunction with standard medical treatment. Believing that answers to illness lie within each patient, he draws on such diverse sources as traditional Native American tales, pop-culture figures, and fictional characters to encourage patients to perceive how their illnesses have allowed them to accomplish a goal, and how to retain or transfer that goal while releasing the illness. One anorexia patient, for instance, attained a level of "perfection" with her extreme dieting that she couldn't bring about in other areas of her life. Working together, doctor and patient construct stories that externalize illness, rather than making it part of one's character. Case studies cover eating disorders, depression, battering, lupus, and various cancers, and Mehl-Madrona explains how, in extreme cases, the narratives are used to control pain or allow a patient to die more peacefully. A fascinating look at a branch of alternative medicine. Rebecca Maksel
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review

". . . Mehl-Madrona shows how other forms of story have given his patients power, allowed for their transformation and healing, and shown them their connection with their community."
(Sharon Kayne, Crosswinds Weekly, June 2005 )

"There are few people who would not recognize some piece of their lives in each of these stories."
(Sharon Kayne, Crosswinds Weekly, June 2005 )

“Coyote Wisdom is about soul and mind--the shared journey of healer and patient toward insights and images that break us out of our frozen-heart places and transform awareness, and thus permit us to let go of suffering. As a physician and one who also strives to heal patients, not just treat them, I honor Dr. Mehl-Madrona for achieving a practical clinical method in Coyote Wisdom that is woven from the artistry of storytelling in the tradition of his elders and his reverence for the healing power of universal myths.”
(James Lake, M.D., Chair, American Psychiatric Association Caucus on Complementary and Alternative Medicine in Psychiatry; Clinical Professor, Department of Psychiatry, Stanford University School of Medicine; and author of Textbook of Integrative Psychiatry )

“Coyote Wisdom is a gateway to understanding the importance of stories in rituals and ceremonies. Mehl-Madrona’s study of healers is a step forward in explaining the implicit wisdom that healers convey to help people get well. To journey with him is a way to be transformed and healed.”
(Barbara Biziou, author of The Joy of Everyday Rituals )

“In this, his third book, Lewis Mehl-Madrona introduces systems narrative medicine, giving professional and lay readers alike a chance to learn the healing secrets of story from a master storyteller. Readers will finish the book inspired by the power of story as a catalyst for healing and enriched with practical guidance on how to access this power.”
(Pamela Miles, author of Reiki: The Definitive Guide )

“Lewis Mehl-Madrona has spent many years exploring and developing means of integrating American Indian healing techniques into Western medicine. In Coyote Wisdom, he gives fresh insights into the power of the spoken word to bring forth miraculous healings and fulfill other human needs. His views on the psychology of the miraculous serve as an important contribution to our understanding of native medicine powers.”
(William S. Lyons, Ph.D., author of Encyclopedia of Native American Healing )

“With his stories, I have seen Dr. Mehl-Madrona heal patients that all other physicians had given up on. The stories in this book are healing in and of themselves. Just reading them brings hope where there may have been none.”
(David Servan-Schreiber, M.D., Ph.D., author of The Instinct to Heal: Curing Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Without Drugs and Without Talk Therapy )

“Coyote Wisdom is an inspired book about how the spoken word can transform disease. Lewis Mehl-Madrona offers a perspective much needed by medicine today: that stories matter. Just encouraging patients to tell their stories and listening to them with full attention can increase the probability of spontaneous healings. Doctors and patients have much to gain by incorporating this wisdom into their lives.”
(Andrew Weil, M.D., author of 8 Weeks to Optimal Health and Spontaneous Healing )

“In Coyote Wisdom, Lewis Mehl-Madrona writes that patients’ stories hold clues for how we can best help them. This is another way of saying that beliefs, values, and culture influence treatment. Medicine can work so much better by appreciating this.”
(Thom Hartmann, bestselling author of Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight and The Edison Gene )

Lewis Mehl-Madrona is certified in family practice, geriatrics and psychiatry, and includes Native American traditions in his practice. Healing through storytelling is the principal approach he shares in this book . . . . Through these stories, he helps people discover the inner healing resources that can transform their lives, including their illnesses. He reports dramatic successes--often with people who have struggled for many years with their health issues--including anorexia, lupus, victimization through emotional and physical abuse, panic disorder, and more. . . . These tales provide insights into a person’s hidden fears and hurts that often underlie and contribute to or even cause the development of many physical and psychological problems. The stories also suggest a variety of solutions and inspire hope that change is possible.
(Daniel J. Benor, M.D., International Journal of Healing and Caring - On line )

"Coyote Wisdom demonstrates how to successfully utilize characters and plots from movies, books, popular culture and indigenous traditions, to easily reinterpret and reauthor the story of illness into one of health and well-being."
(Spirit of Change, Fall 2005 )

"Rather than a book of Native American stories, Coyote Wisdom successfully demonstrates how to . . . reinterpret and re-author the story of illness into one of health and well-being." (Alec Franklor, Edge Life, No. 179, Sept 2007 )

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Bear & Company; 4th Printing edition (March 1, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1591430291
• ISBN-13: 978-1591430292
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 5.9 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #203,138 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #96 in Books > Religion & Spirituality > Earth-Based Religions > Native American

More About the Author

full bio: Lewis Mehl-Madrona Origins. Coming from indigenous origins, Lewis has been interested throughout his life in the contributions that his culture can make to mainstream society. He grew up on the Kentucky-Tennessee border in the United States, a rural area where, even today, 60% of families have household incomes less than $10,000 per year. What these people do have, however, is a culture rich in story and in healing traditions. When he entered Stanford University School of Medicine in California, in 1973, Lewis realized that his culture had much to offer mainstream society - through its understanding of the power of story and through its understanding of healing and transformation. Training. After graduation from medical school, Lewis completed training programs in family medicine and in psychiatry at the University of Vermont College of Medicine. He is American Board Certified in these specialties (with added qualifications in geriatrics) and has taught at several U.S. medical schools, including the University of Arizona and the University of Pittsburgh. In July, 2005, he came to Canada, where is now Associate Professor of Family Medicine and Psychiatry at the University of Saskatchewan College of Medicine. He received a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the Psychological Studies Institute in Palo Alto in 1980 and a Master's of Philosophy in Narrative Practices from Massey University in 2007.Writing. Lewis is the author of four books. Coyote Medicine: Lessons from Native America (Firestone, New York, 1998) explores his efforts to integrate his aboriginal origins and culture into his medical practice. Coyote Healing: Miracles from Native America (Bear and Company, Rochester, VT, 2003) explores the unexpected healings that occur with traditional aboriginal healers and generates some principles for healing. Coyote Wisdom: The Healing Power of Story (Bear and Company, Rochester, VT, 2005), which tells about how narrative organizes experience and guides the healing process. Narrative Medicine: the use of story and history in the healing process (Bear and Company, Rochester, VT in press) is about how we can see the various systems of healing from diverse cultures around the world (including Western technological medicine) as stories which interface with the stories of the culture to which the healing is being applied. Lewis writes about the need to respect a diversity of stories (cultures) and to match the healing story with the patient's story - in fact, to elicit the patient's story of the illness to understand its creation and maintenance and to use that story to inspire a plausible path to healing. Goals: In all these endeavors, Lewis has brought forth an indigenous perspective to the mainstream world. Stories are associated with "health" or "disease." Lewis has worked with communities and companies using narrative perspectives, including Appreciative Inquiry, to draw forth their stories and to facilitate a collaborative re-authoring of those stories. These approaches have faith that people do know how to solve their own problems, that the stories exist, that local expertise is usually sufficient for solving problems, that outside experts rarely help, and that people need to be empowered to trust their local practices, abilities, and cultures to solve problems that present, whether in community relations (alcohol, drugs, poverty), health and disease, or business. Lewis actively pursues his relationship with indigenous culture - through research programs to treat diabetes with traditional medicines, through attending ceremonies, and through working with Northern Saskatchewan reserves to provide psychiatric services on regular trips to the 60th parallel (almost).

abbreviated bio:

Lewis Mehl-Madrona, MD, PhD, MPhil, is Director of the Psychopharmacology Program at Argosy University Hawai'i, where he is also Associate Professor of Psychology. He is an adjunct professor of anthropology at Johnson State College in Vermont and is Education Director for the Coyote Institute for Studies of Change and Transformation, also in Vermont, USA. He is the author of Coyote Medicine, Coyote Healing, Coyote Wisdom, Narrative Medicine, and the soon to be released (July 2009), Narrative Psychiatry: healing mind and brain in a social world. Lewis is a graduate of Stanford University School of Medicine, the Psychological Studies Institute in Palo Alto, and Massey University in Palmerston North, New Zealand. He is American board certified in family medicine and in psychiatry.

Medicine Wheel Oriented Bio:
Mehl-Madrona's story of searching for his ancestral roots beneath the forest of Christianization, colonization, and assimilation becomes a story of seeking mind, body, spirit, and community integration. The need for a parallel path to biomedicine became apparent in medical school when he learned from the professor of medicine and pharmacology that "life was a relentless progression toward death, disease, and decay. The physician's job is to slow the rate of decline." By the weekend, he had found a Cherokee healer with whom to study. That was 1973 and he hasn't stopped his studying with elders. He will describe the guidance they have given him toward achieving a balance among mind, body, spirit, and community, which represent the four directions of the medicine wheel.

My Address
Coyote Institute -- East, P.O. Box 9309, S. Burlington, VT 05407, USA

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Rich with wisdom, March 27, 2006

By 

Daniel J. Benor "Wholistic Healing Publications" (Medford, NJ) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Coyote Wisdom: The Power of Story in Healing (Paperback)

Lewis Mehl-Madrona is certified in family practice, geriatrics and psychiatry, and includes Native American traditions in his practice. Healing through storytelling is the principal approach he shares in this book - of the various Native American ceremonial treatments that he uses.

Mehl-Madrona's storytelling is rich with the wisdom of his Cherokee grandmother. He seems to have stories available for every possible circumstance and occasion. These tales provide insights into a person's hidden fears and hurts that often underlie and contribute to or even cause the development of many physical and psychological problems. The stories also suggest a variety of solutions and inspire hope that change is possible.

Through these stories, he helps people discover the inner healing resources that can transform their lives, including their illnesses. He reports dramatic successes - often with people who have struggled for many years with their health issues - including anorexia, lupus (a chronic form of arthritis), victimization through emotional and physical abuse, panic disorder, and more.

What I see as particularly helpful are the suggestions for change that Mehl-Madrona intersperses within the stories. These are very similar to the tales that Milton Erickson used to tell - in the process of hypnotic inductions, with imbedded suggestions that often slipped past the sentinel guardian defenses of his patients.

Mehl-Madrona is most remarkable for having gained a measure of acceptance for his methods within western medicine.

For a book that contains generous portions of wisdom, this book is an easy and enjoyable read.

See also Mehl-Madrona's earlier books: Coyote Healing and Coyote Medicine.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best one yet, April 11, 2007

By 

Randall Sexton "Zenman" (Santa Fe, NM) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Coyote Wisdom: The Power of Story in Healing (Paperback)

I think this is Dr. Mehl-Madrona's best book yet. As a registered nurse, Zen Shiatsu therapist and shaman-in-training, I to have witnessed the power of the story in healing...even when all else fails. I'm looking forward to the next book!

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Refreshing, March 20, 2006

By 

* "eepeak" (Corvallis, OR USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Coyote Wisdom: The Power of Story in Healing (Paperback)

This book gives perspective to illness in ways that balance Western medicine with healing stories based in a variety of traditions but primarily Native American creation stories. I value that the author offers credentials from both backgrounds and appreciate the wisdom one gains from understanding that so much of what we bring to the mentality of illness is based upon the opinions and attitudes that we have been exposed to in medical text or taken on board through our own environmental coping mechanisms. The stories radiate hope when we realize that we alone can be empowered through fresh perspectives to create our own story for health and well being.