Who can heal? Training? “Many aspects of Native American healing are still closely guarded oral tradition. Specific techniques of healing, sacred songs, and healing rituals are received directly from elder healers, from spirits encountered during vision quest, and as a result of initiation into secret societies.�?”Many Native healers believe that people learn to heal best the conditions that they have experienced. Healing power can be inherited from ancestors, transmitted from another healer, or developed through training and initiation. However, the best way to develop, strengthen, and maintain healing power is through rigorous personal training.�?/SPAN>

Practice: How does a healing session work for this technique?

Methods of treatment are as varied as methods of diagnosis. The most common methods include prayer, chanting, music, smudging�?herbalism, laying on of hands, counseling, and ceremony.

Assessment: “As in Western medicine, the Native healer observes presenting symptoms …[may] also discuss the possible causes of the disease, the patient's lifestyle and relationships, and how the patient's disease was affecting his family. The purpose of this lengthy discussion was not merely diagnostic, but also "to draw the people completely into the curing process, to engage their total persons, to get them communing fully with Wakan-Tanka [the Great Spirit] and the Helpers�? Wintu shaman Flora Jones would assess "With the diagnostic powers of the spirit-helpers acting through her hands, she begins to move her fingers carefully across the patient's body sensing unseen, internal injuries or abnormalities." Flora Jones feels the patient's disease or pain in her own body: "I become a part of their body." Healers also use several forms of divination and dream interpretation.
Treatment techniques: Laying on of Hands. ”Massage, healing touch, and noncontact healing are practiced by Native healers throughout North and <st1:place>South America</st1:place>. Often the hands are used to sweep away or remove spiritual intrusions or to brush in healing powers.  Cherokees warm their hands over coals and circle their palms either on or above an affected area. Some healers hold their hands to the front and back of an affected area, creating what they now call "electrodes within the body." The healer imagines that electricity is moving from 1 hand to the other. Sometimes the muscles are rubbed in a manner similar to Western massage. To increase the healing effect, the medicine person massages specific therapeutic points.�?/SPAN>

In Cohen’s Qi Gong book) (page 262, he says “The circling palms method of treatment is identical to that used by indigenous people�?my Cherokee mentor�?used to hold his hands in front and back of the patient’s body, ‘like two poles of a magnet, the negative and the positive.�?Sometimes he would circle one palm �?clockwise to warm the body, counterclockwise to cool it.�?

Uses: When is this Technique useful?

Duration / Frequency: “Disease can have a slow or sudden onset. Similarly, healing can occur quickly or over a long period of time. However, even in serious or chronic disease, long-term therapy may not be required. The intensity of therapy is generally considered more important than the duration. Healing may not be a gradual process but rather a quantum leap. However, Native healers recognize that patients must make lifestyle and behavioral changes that reinforce and maintain the improved condition.�?/SPAN>

Studies done: “From the Western scientific perspective, Native American healing is only documented in scattered anecdotes and observations. Native healing methods have not been tested in controlled experiments, nor is this likely to change in the near future. It is impossible to administer "standard doses" in practices that may change from healer to healer and from case to case. Therapeutic methodology and outcome are generally not written down and are known only to individual healers or their close associates. In any case, unmeasurable and nonspecific factors so often outweigh the measurable and specific that it may be impossible to draw accurate conclusions about the efficacy of Native healing from the perspective of Western empirical science.�?/SPAN>