Medicine men for the 21st Century

[blackcrowheart]

Medicine men for the 21st Century
Native American veterans face unique struggles upon returning home from
war, including high rates of post-combat stress. Now a mix of modern and
traditional medicine is helping them heal.

June 4, 2007

www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-ptsd_04_scharnbergjun\
04,1,1567532.story?page=1&ctrack=1&cset=true&track=rss
<http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-ptsd_04_scharnbergju\
n04,1,1567532.story?page=1&ctrack=1&cset=true&track=rss>

PRESCOTT, Ariz. -- Albert Laughter kneels near the fire pit in the
center of the tepee, arranging his ceremonial arrowheads, bowls and
pipes. He lays out the all-important eagle feathers, reverently
unwrapping them from an American flag.

The fifth-generation Navajo medicine man has trained most of his life to
treat the people of his tribe with the traditional healing methods of
Native Americans from this region of the country: powwows, sacred
dances, sweat lodges, purification ceremonies, natural herbs.
But these days his job is very different.

Laughter is employed by the federal government. He primarily treats
military veterans suffering from the trauma of combat. And the tepee in
which he does much of his work sits not on an American Indian
reservation but on the grounds of the Bob Stump Veterans Affairs Medical
Center in Prescott.

"I guess I'm a true 21st Century medicine man," Laughter said. "They
call me on my cell phone to make appointments, and I get much of my work
thanks to two modern wars -- Iraq and Afghanistan -- that began at the
start of this century."

Since World War II, when Navajo Code Talkers became an essential part of
the U.S. armed forces, Native Americans have had some of the highest per
capita rates of military service of any demographic group in the United
States, a trend that has only increased as poverty on reservations has
risen and young men and women seek better economic futures.

Unfortunately, Native Americans also have faced some of the biggest
difficulties upon returning home from combat. Studies of Native American
vets from the Vietnam War era, for example, revealed alarming rates of
suicide, drug abuse, alcoholism and homelessness, particularly when they
returned from war to remote reservations with little access to mental
heath care.

Even more, a study of Vietnam-era Native American vets found they were
twice as likely to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder as their
white comrades, a reality some researchers attribute to the fact that
they often deeply identify with the indigenous populations they are sent
to fight. The research also revealed that Native American troops were
often more likely to be assigned risky combat roles, another reason for
their high PTSD rates.

Today, as thousands of Native American troops return from combat tours
in Iraq and Afghanistan, the question for health-care providers and an
aging generation of American Indian veterans is how to prevent history
from repeating itself.

The approach gaining traction throughout the Western and Southwestern
U.S. -- home to some of the largest American Indian populations -- is
this: Combine the most modern Western medical treatments with the most
traditional Native American methods of healing. Marry the resources of
the Department of Veterans Affairs with the blessing of tribal elders
and respected medicine men.

Dr. Jay Shore is a VA psychologist and assistant professor at the
University of Colorado at Denver who specializes in treating American
Indian veterans with PTSD. Times and techniques have changed: Using
videoconferencing equipment, he treats dozens of veterans on
reservations from Montana to South Dakota -- all from his office in
Denver.

"Isolation compounds PTSD," Shore said. "And many of these veterans live
in extremely isolated places where a generation ago they never had
access to the kind of help we're trying to give them today."

Shore routinely confers with a patient's tribal medicine man about
treatment. He has gone so far as to fly to where his patients live in
order to participate with them in "sweats," sacred American Indian
ceremonies in which participants sit for hours in stifling steam lodges.
The ceremony is believed to purify the mind, body and spirit, bringing
peace and clarity.

Native communities on board

The VA has opened five clinics that serve remote American Indian
reservations and allow the kind of telemedicine Shore is doing. Four
more are set to open in the next several months.

The clinics are run by Native American veterans who serve as a bridge
between the American Indian population and the VA, which was deeply
distrusted by Native American Vietnam vets who felt it did not offer any
treatment applicable to them.

When the clinics were first conceived, VA officials approached tribal
governments of dozens of sovereign American Indian nations for their
approval as well as to appoint formal liaisons between the Native
American population and the experts ready to treat them.

"We realized that in order to help Native American vets, we had to have
the Native American communities on board," said W.J. "Buck" Richardson,
minority veteran program coordinator for the VA.

Few things have been as successful with American Indian communities as
the VA's implementation of traditional healing practices, not just in
clinics on reservations but in urban hospitals. The VA hospitals in
Albuquerque and Prescott have started twice-monthly "talking circles,"
sacred Native American gatherings where it is believed that strength is
transferred to whoever speaks from all who listen. At the Prescott
talking circle, participants gather around a fire in the tepee; whoever
holds the eagle feather has the floor.

Chester Clah, a Navajo veteran who has suffered from PTSD since his tour
in Vietnam, joined the talking circle in Albuquerque after decades of
heavy drinking and contemplating suicide.

"It was the first time anything has worked for me," he said. "In that
circle I draw strength from the others, and they bear some of my
weakness for me. I stopped wanting to kill myself. I don't need to drink
anymore."

James Gillies, the psychologist who leads the talking circle in
Albuquerque, has found that the more he treats American Indians with
PTSD, the more he understands how unique their cases are -- and thus
what a unique form of treatment they often require. Because troops are
more likely to suffer PTSD if they have a lot of previous trauma in
their lives, Gillies says Native Americans who have felt the
consequences of having their land stripped away and their culture fade
are highly susceptible to the disorder.

"Combat is just the final trauma on top of everything else," he said.

Clinicians who work with American Indian veterans report hearing them
struggle with feelings that they did to other native populations -- the
Vietnamese, the Iraqis -- what was done to them and their ancestors.

"Identification with the enemy is something that has plagued minority
vets for generations," said Michelle Kierstead, a Native American PTSD
social worker at the VA Medical Center in Prescott. "They talk about a
government on the outside imposing its will. They see children in places
like Iraq that look like the children on their own reservations --
dark-skinned and impoverished. They see themselves in them, and I
believe this contributes to their high rates of PTSD."

Though extensive studies were done on Vietnam-era American Indian
veterans, no research has been released regarding American Indian
veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But clinicians predict it
will reflect what was seen a generation ago. The difference will be if
the new approaches to treatment and the availability of social services
in remote areas can stop the current generation from falling into the
same pitfalls as their elders.

'I see myself in each of them'

"A big part of what is happening today is that Vietnam vets are stepping
forward and saying, 'Let's stop them from making the same mistakes we
did,' " said Richardson, the VA minority veteran program coordinator.

Clah has watched in recent years as his Albuquerque talking circle
transforms from having only Native American vets from the Vietnam era to
attracting men and women newly back from Iraq and Afghanistan. "I see
myself in each of them," he said somberly.

Clah has not been content to let the talking circle be the only
traditional healing option available to Albuquerque's American Indian
veterans. He spent months lobbying the VA there to allow a sweat lodge
to be built on the hospital's grounds. Construction recently began.

"We're starting to enclose the area where the lodge will be built with a
fence," Gillies said. "It literally will become a sacred piece of Native
American land, right here on the VA. That's a big deal to these vets.
Word is spreading in Indian country that we're ready to meet them
halfway, to treat them in ways that make sense to them."

On a recent evening, a young soldier about to depart for Iraq summoned a
Navajo medicine man to his family's home. Family and friends gathered
around Pvt. Dustin Thomas as a purification ceremony -- intended to
clear his mind and spirit of worry about his coming deployment -- was
performed.

"I guess people who didn't grow up with these traditions wouldn't
understand them," said Thomas, 20. "But if you grew up with them and
deeply believe them, they work for you."

The young man paused.

"Hopefully," he said, "we will do another one when I return home.
Hopefully it will clear all the bad stuff that I see there away."

[Okwes]

VA'S MEDICINE MEN American Indian healing, Internet used to treat
veterans 06/09/2007 www.montereyherald.com/health/ci_6100912
<http://www.montereyherald.com/health/ci_6100912>
PRESCOTT, Ariz. — Albert Laughter kneels near the fire pit in the
center of the tepee, arranging his ceremonial arrowheads, bowls and
pipes. He lays out the all-important eagle feathers, reverently
unwrapping them from an American flag.
The fifth-generation Navajo medicine man has trained most of his life to
treat the people of his tribe with the traditional healing methods of
American Indians from this region of the country: powwows, sacred
dances, sweat lodges, purification ceremonies, natural herbs.
But these days his job is very different.
Laughter is employed by the federal government. He primarily treats
military veterans suffering from the trauma of combat. And the tepee in
which he does much of his work sits not on an American Indian
reservation but on the grounds of the Bob Stump Veterans Affairs Medical
Center in Prescott.
"I guess I'm a true 21st Century medicine man," Laughter said. "They
call me on my cell phone to make appointments, and I get much of my work
thanks to two modern wars — Iraq and Afghanistan — that began at
the start of this century."
Since World War II, when Navajo Code Talkers became an essential part of
the U.S. armed forces, American Indians have had some of the highest per
capita rates of military service of any demographic group in the United
States, a trend that has only increased as poverty on reservations has
risen and young men and women seek better economic futures.

Unfortunately, American Indians also have faced some of the biggest
difficulties upon returning home from combat. Studies of American Indian
vets from the Vietnam War era, for example, revealed alarming rates of
suicide, drug abuse, alcoholism and homelessness, particularly when they
returned from war to remote reservations with little access to mental
heath care.
Even more, a study of Vietnam-era American Indian vets found they were
twice as likely to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder as their
white comrades, a reality some researchers attribute to the fact that
they often deeply identify with the indigenous populations they are sent
to fight. The research also revealed that American Indian troops were
often more likely to be assigned risky combat roles, another reason for
their high PTSD rates.
Today, as thousands of American Indian troops return from combat tours
in Iraq and Afghanistan, the question for health-care providers and an
aging generation of American Indian veterans is how to prevent history
from repeating itself.
The approach gaining traction throughout the Western and Southwestern
U.S. — home to some of the largest American Indian populations —
is this: Combine the most modern Western medical treatments with the
most traditional American Indian methods of healing. Marry the resources
of the Department of Veterans Affairs with the blessing of tribal elders
and respected medicine men.
Dr. Jay Shore is a VA psychologist and assistant professor at the
University of Colorado at Denver who specializes in treating American
Indian veterans with PTSD. Times and techniques have changed: Using
videoconferencing equipment, he treats dozens of veterans on
reservations from Montana to South Dakota — all from his office in
Denver.
"Isolation compounds PTSD," Shore said. "And many of these veterans live
in extremely isolated places where a generation ago they never had
access to the kind of help we're trying to give them today."

Serving remote reservations|

Shore routinely confers with a patient's tribal medicine man about
treatment. He has gone so far as to fly to where his patients live in
order to participate with them in "sweats," sacred American Indian
ceremonies in which participants sit for hours in stifling steam lodges.
The ceremony is believed to purify the mind, body and spirit, bringing
peace and clarity.
The VA has opened five clinics that serve remote American Indian
reservations and allow the kind of telemedicine Shore is doing. Four
more are set to open in the next several months.
The clinics are run by American Indian veterans who serve as a bridge
between the American Indian population and the VA, which was deeply
distrusted by American Indian Vietnam vets who felt it did not offer any
treatment applicable to them.
When the clinics were first conceived, VA officials approached tribal
governments of dozens of sovereign American Indian nations for their
approval as well as to appoint formal liaisons between the American
Indian population and the experts ready to treat them.

"We realized that in order to help Native American vets, we had to have
the Native American communities on board," said W.J. "Buck" Richardson,
minority veteran program coordinator for the VA.
Few things have been as successful with American Indian communities as
the VA's implementation of traditional healing practices, not just in
clinics on reservations but in urban hospitals. The VA hospitals in
Albuquerque and Prescott have started twice-monthly "talking circles,"
sacred American Indian gatherings where it is believed that strength is
transferred to whoever speaks from all who listen. At the Prescott
talking circle, participants gather around a fire in the tepee; whoever
holds the eagle feather has the floor.
James Gillies, the psychologist who leads the talking circle in
Albuquerque, has found that the more he treats American Indians with
PTSD, the more he understands how unique their cases are — and thus
what a unique form of treatment they often require. Because troops are
more likely to suffer PTSD if they have a lot of previous trauma in
their lives, Gillies says Native Americans who have felt the
consequences of having their land stripped away and their culture fade
are highly susceptible to the disorder.
"Combat is just the final trauma on top of everything else," he said.
Clinicians who work with American Indian veterans report hearing them
struggle with feelings that they did to other native populations —
the Vietnamese, the Iraqis — what was done to them and their
ancestors.
"Identification with the enemy is something that has plagued minority
vets for generations," said Michelle Kierstead, a Native American PTSD
social worker at the VA Medical Center in Prescott. "They talk about a
government on the outside imposing its will. They see children in places
like Iraq that look like the children on their own reservations —
dark-skinned and impoverished. They see themselves in them, and I
believe this contributes to their high rates of PTSD."
Though extensive studies were done on Vietnam-era American Indian
veterans, no research has been released regarding American Indian
veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But clinicians predict it
will reflect what was seen a generation ago. The difference will be if
the new approaches to treatment and the availability of social services
in remote areas can stop the current generation from falling into the
same pitfalls as their elders.
On a recent evening, a young soldier about to depart for Iraq summoned a
Navajo medicine man to his family's home. Family and friends gathered
around Pvt. Dustin Thomas as a purification ceremony — intended to
clear his mind and spirit of worry about his coming deployment — was
performed.
"I guess people who didn't grow up with these traditions wouldn't
understand them," said Thomas, 20. "But if you grew up with them and
deeply believe them, they work for you."
The young man paused.
"Hopefully," he said, "we will do another one when I return home.
Hopefully it will clear all the bad stuff that I see there away."

(EDITORS: STORY CAN END EHRE)
———
THE TRAGIC BALLAD OF IRA HAYES
When Native Americans talk about troubled veterans who slipped through
the cracks, they virtually always hold up one tragic example: Ira Hayes.
Like many young American Indians who enlist in the military today in
search of steady paychecks and a way off impoverished reservations, the
young Pima Indian joined the Marines during World War II. He soon became
famous as one of six men who raised the flag on Iwo Jima. A photograph
of the moment remains one of America's most poignant military icons.
After surviving the horrific Pacific Island battle that left the bulk of
his infantry company dead, Hayes was summoned back to the United States
to travel the country on a tour to raise money through war bonds. Though
praised everywhere he went as a war hero, he was unable to deal with
what he had endured in combat. He began drinking heavily, eventually
drinking himself to death in 1955 on his tribe's remote Arizona
reservation. He was immortalized in the folk song "The Ballad of Ira
Hayes."
Today, when American Indian veterans present one another medals and
honors, they often do it in Hayes' name.
—Kirsten Scharnberg
———
(c) 2007, Chicago Tribune.
Visit the Chicago Tribune on the Internet at
www.chicagotribune.com/
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
—————
PHOTOS (from MCT Photo Service, 202-383-6099): MED-NATIVEAMERICANS-PTSD

(EDITORS: BEGIN OPTIONAL TRIM)
Chester Clah, a Navajo veteran who has suffered from PTSD since his tour
in Vietnam, joined the talking circle in Albuquerque after decades of
heavy drinking and contemplating suicide.
"It was the first time anything has worked for me," he said. "In that
circle I draw strength from the others, and they bear some of my
weakness for me. I stopped wanting to kill myself. I don't need to drink
anymore."