Alaska Native healing

Domain XI · Traditional medicine & indigenous healing · Della Keats · 1970 · Alaska

What it is

"Alaska Native healing" is not one therapy. It names the living healing knowledge of many distinct Alaska Native peoples and the tribally run health systems that now deliver some of it. These include SCF's Traditional Healing Clinic in Anchorage, the Maniilaq Association Tribal Doctor Program in…

Format

• There is no session protocol. The framework is the care pathway that tribal health organisations publish, plus the therapist's parallel work.
• Identifying needs and goals. The clinic identifies the customer-owner's needs and goals. The services offered depend on the individual tribal doctor's skills.

Who practises it, and how they are trained or regulated

• SCF tribal doctors. A tribal doctor must meet several criteria, including "certification by the Traditional Healing Elders' Advisory Council." SCF has a tribal doctor apprentice role and, from 2017, a Tribal Doctor Training Program. A 2017 article in Stanford Social Innovation Review, hosted by SCF, reports three things. Only Alaska Native healers are appointed. "A council of elders decides" who is appointed. Tribal…
• Calricaraq delivery (as published). A 3-day community gathering, then follow-up gatherings, healing circles and training. Training moves from buy-in, to awareness and understanding of historical trauma, to traditional healing (Calricaraq). A facilitator manual was published in March 2015.

Questions to explore with your client

• What drew you to it, and what are you hoping it will change?
• Is there physical contact? Was it explained beforehand, and do you feel free to say no or stop at any point?
• 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

• the interpreter answering for the client. It is working when the client's own words come through.
• pan-Native assumptions. It is working when you can name the specific organisation and pathway that applies to this client.
• missed sessions caused by logistics rather than lack of engagement. It is working when sessions happen reliably and privately.
• dissociation or freezing when touch is described. It is working when the client goes in with a clear sense of their own limits.
• turning the modules into an interrogation. It is working when the client brings up spiritual or family material without being asked.

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.