Summary
Indigenous healers have long been recognized for their traditional knowledge and practices in managing pain and promoting holistic well-being. These healers, who often hold deep cultural and spiritual connections to their communities, offer alternative approaches to pain management that consider the physical, emotional, and spiritual aspects of an individual. While indigenous healing practices vary across different cultures and regions, healthcare providers can make space for involving indigenous healers and practices in pain management. Native American healers have a rich history of using various techniques to address pain. These may include herbal remedies, smudging, energy healing, sweat lodge ceremonies, music, dance, trance, storytelling, and other ritualistic practices. These methods are often intertwined with spiritual beliefs and ceremonies, recognizing the interconnectedness of the individual with nature and the spiritual realm. However, these approaches have not been broadly realized in Western health systems that privilege biomedical approaches and Western knowledge paradigms and models. Globally, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations support the availability of traditional health practices. The WHO provides a definition of traditional medicine, including indigenous healing practices, which is: “The sum total of the knowledge, skill, and practices based on the theories, beliefs, and experiences indigenous to different cultures, whether explicable or not, used in the maintenance of health as well as in the prevention, diagnosis, improvement or treatment of physical and mental illness.” Furthermore, the rights to traditional health practices are declared in Article 24 of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP).
Keywords (separate with commas)
Culturally Sensitive Social Work, Best Practices, Cultural Competence
