Indigenous Approaches for Healing: Wisdom and Best Practices from All Our Relations

Indigenous practices for healing and wellbeing have been used for more than 30,000 years. Although colonization caused deadly epidemics that killed nearly 90% of the Native population, today, they are resilient, strong, and thriving. Today, there are 574 federally recognized tribes in the United States.

Indigenous people have collective and ancestral knowledge about survival and adaptation to ever-changing conditions and political climates. Historically, Indigenous healing practices were passed on through oral traditions and storytelling and were not written or published in books or journals. With colonization and time, healing practices have endured. Many have been adapted and even borrowed by Western colonizers. Examples of Indigenous approaches to healing include medicines made from traditional plants, the use of agriculture and crops to heal and nourish, spiritual ceremonies to promote healing, and the use of clans and kinship systems to take care of families and share wisdom and family teachings. One of the most observed contributions of Indigenous knowledge and practice in recovery spaces is the medicine wheel, which promotes balance of mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual wellbeing. When one aspect of the wheel is out of balance, the goal is always to restore balance. Music (such as singing, drumming, and other instrumentations) is another example of how Indigenous approaches to healing are used in community settings and recovery spaces. music can reset the central nervous system and promote feelings of connection, stress reduction, and grounding. Some clinics and facilities in the United States employ medicine people to provide traditional doctoring to patients and clients. Talking circles are often used in recovery and healing spaces. These come from Indigenous practices and values like listening, humility, kinship, and generosity. Although Indigenous healing practices are utilized in tribal communities and populations, there is still limited awareness and knowledge about what practices are working to promote and restore healing at the individual, family, community, and sovereign-nation levels.

This Research Topic aims to gather contributions exploring Indigenous healing approaches from various fields, including community health, public health, psychology, social sciences, and digital health. It will present Indigenous healing approaches that are effective and based on multiple bodies of evidence and ways of knowing and being. The collection will highlight Indigenous communities and authors and include tribal best practices, culturally validated practices, and tribal/urban community-defined best practices. Additionally, this Research Topic will explore strengths-based healing practices using cultural, geographical, linguistic, and spiritual approaches.

We welcome submissions using non-traditional Western methodologies with Indigenous community members and authors. We seek the following paper types: case studies, reviews, brief reports, commentaries, original research, and more. Indigenous approaches and papers should include alternative data types, like videos, music, photographs, poetry, songs, artwork, journaling, and imagery.

Topics of interest include but are not limited to:

- Identifying Indigenous practices for healing.

- The role of colonization on Indigenous health.

- Addressing life expectancy and life discrepancies using Indigenous approaches.

- Indigenous community-based programs that utilize Indigenous healing and knowledge.

- The intersection of Indigenous and Western approaches to healing and wellbeing using an all my relations perspective.

By bringing together a diverse range of perspectives, this research topic seeks to elevate Indigenous approaches to healing while inspiring new practices that increase the visibility of Indigenous authors and healers.