Haudenosaunee medicine societies

Domain XI · Traditional medicine & indigenous healing · Haudenosaunee (Six Nations) territory

What it is

The Haudenosaunee (Six Nations: Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca and Tuscarora; older literature says "Iroquois") maintain medicine societies. The best known outside the community are the False Face Society and the Husk Face Society. This is not a therapy and not a method a psychotherapist…

Format

• The medicine societies have no published "phases" for outsiders, and none are given here. What follows is the psychotherapist's own pathway of care alongside them. Phases, session counts and transition criteria are built on the CFI's documented uses.
• Phase 1. Engagement and cultural assessment (sessions 1 to 3).

Who practises it, and how they are trained or regulated

• Version followed: what Haudenosaunee institutions themselves state (the Haudenosaunee Confederacy's 1995 policy on medicine masks, as excerpted and reported in secondary sources; representations of the Haudenosaunee Standing Committee on Burial Rules and Regulations recorded in US repatriation notices; the Confederacy's own "Medicine" page), with outsider scholarship as attributed context; for the therapist's own…
• The Haudenosaunee Standing Committee on Burial Rules and Regulations acted for the Cayuga, Mohawk, Onondaga, Seneca Nation of Indians, Tonawanda Band of Seneca and Tuscarora in US repatriation claims; the Onondaga Nation is described as the repository for repatriated objects.

Evidence status, as the guide reports it

• Goal: evidence-based therapy for the presenting problem, adapted to the client's meanings; collaboration with community-run services only with written consent; the client's own medicine pathway is left to the client and the community.

Questions to explore with your client

• What drew you to it, and what are you hoping it will change?
• Does it involve any substance, plant preparation, remedy or supplement? Has your doctor or prescriber been told, especially about any medication you take?
• Is it a group, retreat or community? How do they respond if someone wants to leave or raises a concern?
• How do you and the practitioner understand what is happening, in spiritual or cultural terms? Is that a source of comfort, worry, or both?
• Who runs it, and what training or registration do they hold?
• What actually happens in a session or meeting, and how often?
• What does it cost, and is there pressure to commit to more?
• How do you feel afterwards, in the hours and days that follow?
• Does it fit with, or clash with, the work we do here?

What practitioners of it watch for

• your own questions drifting to what happens in ceremonies. Working: the client names supports and limits clearly.
• the framework imposed on a client who does not identify with it. Working: goals are concrete and owned by the client.
• the client feeling rejected; redirect to the need underneath. Working: the client pursues the need through respectful routes.
• polite agreement that hides mistrust; missed sessions after a misstep. Working: the client tells you when something did not fit.
• requests from researchers or trainees for "cultural" case material. Working: the client trusts you with what matters clinically.

When to involve someone else

• New or worsening physical symptoms, or advice to stop or change prescribed medication: involve the client's doctor or prescriber.
• Signs of coercion, isolation from family and friends, escalating costs or secrecy: discuss openly and consider safeguarding.
• A crisis or thoughts of suicide: follow your crisis protocol. In the US, call or text 988; in the UK and Ireland, Samaritans on 116 123.

Drawn automatically from the guide's own sections. Stay curious: neither endorse nor dismiss what the client values, and check anything that matters against the full guide and its sources. Not medical advice.