Community-based
Cross Cultural Health and Healing
Southwestern
College is excited to offer a certificate program for human
service providers who are interested in developing bi-cultural
perspectives with a mentor within a series of coursework
overseen by Lewis
Mehl-Madrona, MD, Ph.D. The program provides an integrative
and cross-cultural perspective on health and healing for
people who are providing services to a community, including
therapists, social workers, nurses, physicians, psychologists,
lawyers, educators and related professions.
This
hands-on, mentorship-based program is truly unique and moves
away from static, content-based multicultural training toward
a dynamic, experiential learning based in relationships and
deep respect. The program extends beyond “cultural
awareness” studies to a more holistic approach in how
to make genuine, human, caring connections with people from
another culture in which learning can take place for everyone.
In
the Community-based Cross Cultural Health and Healing program
you will combine the daily richness of your work experiences
with the versatility of distance learning. This will allow
you to experience a cohort and support community going through
similar cross-cultural learning around the world. You will
partner with a mentor in the culture you wish explore and/or
provide services to professionally. This mentor will be a “knowledge
keeper” who can offer you opportunities to explore
and discuss history, language, culture and lifeways of the
people. This partnership enables you to learn ways to communicate
and bridge the services more effectively.
To
qualify for this program you will need at least a bachelor’s
degree or advanced degree in one of the helping professions.
The program consists of five courses at 4 quarter units each
(40 contact hours per course). Courses need not be taken
sequentially except for the introductory course of Conceptualizations
of Mind, Health & Healing.
If
you are interested in learning more about this program contact
the Director of Admissions at 1-877-471-5756 ext. 26.
COURSES
Mentorship
Program (occurs throughout the program)
DESCRIPTION OF COURSES
Conceptualizations
of Mind, Health & Healing
This course asks how indigenous people conceptualize
mind, self, identity, consciousness, health, healing, and mental
health. The instructor, Lewis Mehl-Madrona, will provide developed
resources, and the class will also develop and discover its own.
Initally, we will focus on the indigenous people of North America,
however, we can easily incorporate other cultures into our discussions.
We are both trying to understand pre-contact conceptualizations
(an archaelogy of concepts) as well as how colonization changes
concepts. We are also striving for a historical understanding
of how events in the history of particular aboriginal people
can help us to understand current conditions. This course will
be the first course offered in the program and you can sign up
by June 2008. The ultimate goal for our efforts will be a working
website to help our colleagues make sense of the differences
between indigenous thought about these concepts and those of
mainstream biomedical society.
Indigenous
Friendly Ways of Enhancing Health
This
class looks at health enhancement through an indigenous lens,
and how we would enhance health and treat or interact with
illness as indigenous people. Examples exist to guide
us. The Just Therapies team in New Zealand has been
struggling with these concepts for years. Working to integrative
Pakea (white), Maori, and Samoan perspectives, they have
evaluated "therapeutic" approaches from the standpoint
of aboriginal people of the Pacific Rim. Eduardo Duran has
written extensively about approaches within psychology that
fit the perspectives of aboriginal people. In this class,
we will consider questions of how to heal and reduce suffering
in ways that enhance and empower indigenous people and are
mindful of social justice. We will develop guidelines and
continue to expand a web site to guide our colleagues in
these areas.
Traditional
Cultural Healing
Every
culture and community has traditional healing practices.
Even modern mainstream cultures had folk healing practices
that preceded the implementation of biomedicine. Those of
us working within indigenous communities must respect and
work alongside these traditional healers and practices. We
must learn the assumptions and world views of the healers
and must consider how to work with them. In this course,
we will examine traditional healing from the cultures of
the students represented in the course. How does traditional
cultural healing work within the communities in which we
work? How can we recognize traditional healers? How can we
approach traditional healers to form collaborative relationships
rather than patriarchal or hierarchical ones? How do we use
traditional healing ourselves and how do people who suffer
decide what approaches to take? Finally, what are the stories
that are represented and presented in these approaches to
healing?
Creating
Genuine Cross-Cultural Dialogue
The
purpose of this course is to help students "talk in
order to listen." The course is decidedly post-modern
in that we are encouraging students to abandon the concept
of truth and to listen to representatives from other cultures
describe their reality without judgment. Ranging from Jacque
Lacan who argued that listening should occur without interference
from theory, we will practice actually talking respectfully
to each other and educating each other about our stories
and traditions. Assignments will involve engaging members
of communities in which we live to educate us about their
views on life and health and healing. The point of this course
is to develop attitudes and styles of communication
that emanate respect so that we can become life-long learners
of culture.
Exploring
Language, Culture and Consciousness
The
work of this course is done primarily within the community
in which the student works. The goal is to begin to learn
the language of that community. A teacher of that language
will be identified and engaged. The online part of this class
is to discuss with other learners the relationship of language
to health and healing, consciousness and culture. We will
also be present to support each other in the work of learning
to think like an "Other" through the learning of
a different language and different thought forms connected
to that language. We will explore how grammar and syntax
support and affect thought and emotion.
Mentorship
Program (occurs throughout the program)
One
of the most important parts of this program is the mentorship
with local community knowledge keepers. Learning within
community requires the involvement of the community in the
education of those who will work with them. During the first
course that anyone takes in this program, we will dialogue
about how to find a community elder to be a mentor. We will
support the certificate participant to make contact and to
negotiate a teaching relationship with this individual. Through
the remainder of the program, the participant will spend
time with the mentor as they both see fit, learning the healing
traditions of that community, and developing an understanding
of how to work within those traditions and with that elder
with the clients with whom the trainee will interact. We
will be offering the mentor an adjunct faculty appointment
and will provide them with a stipend for doing this training
over the course of the program. We will also have telephone
and on-line support for the mentor to help him or her in
any way needed to provide best possible cross-cultural education
for the participant. Students will be expected to keep a
diary of their mentorship experience and will learn about
reflexive methodologies and how we do research with ourselves
as the subject.
