An in-depth look at the therapeutic and transformative powers of storytelling in Native American and other cultures

• Explores how to create a healing state of mind using stories

• Includes healing stories from Native American traditions and other cultures from around the world

• By the author of the bestselling Coyote Medicine

Stories are powerful sources of meaning that shape and transform our lives. We tell stories to track our process of personal and spiritual growth and to honor and respect the journeys we have made. Through stories we are provided with experiences of spiritual empowerment that can lead to transformation.

In Coyote Wisdom, Lewis Mehl-Madrona explores the healing use of stories passed down from generation to generation in Native American culture and describes how we can apply this wisdom to empower and transform our own lives. A storytelling approach to transformation starts with how we were created and how we can re-create ourselves through the stories we tell. As we explore the archetypal characters and situations that populate the inner world of our stories, we can experience breakthroughs of healing and even miracles of transformation.

This approach to healing through stories runs counter to the current model of modern psychology. The stories we tell about ourselves may model our lives, but by introducing new characters and plots, we can come to see ourselves in a new way. The author also draws upon the cultures of other indigenous peoples--the Maori, East Africans, Mongolians, Aborigines, and Laplanders--to illustrate the healing use of stories throughout the world.

NATIVE AMERICAN / SPIRITUALITY "With his stories, I have seen Dr. Mehl-Madrona heal patients that all other physicians had given up on. The stories in this book are healing in and of themselves. Just reading them brings hope where there may have been none." --David Servan-Schreiber, M.D., Ph.D., author of The Instinct to Heal: Curing Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Without Drugs and Without Talk Therapy "Coyote Wisdom is an inspired book about how the spoken word can transform disease. Lewis Mehl-Madrona offers a perspective much needed by medicine today: that stories matter. Just encouraging patients to tell their stories and listening to them with full attention can increase the probability of spontaneous healings. Doctors and patients have much to gain by incorporating this wisdom into their lives." --Andrew Weil, M.D., author of 8 Weeks to Optimal Health and Spontaneous Healing "In Coyote Wisdom, Lewis Mehl-Madrona writes that patients' stories hold clues for how we can best help them. This is another way of saying that beliefs, values, and culture influence treatment. Medicine can work so much better by appreciating this." --Thom Hartmann, bestselling author of Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight and The Edison Gene Stories are powerful sources of meaning that shape and transform our lives. We tell stories to track our process of personal and spiritual growth and to honor and respect the journeys we have made. Through stories we are provided with experiences of spiritual empowerment that can lead to transformation. In Coyote Wisdom, Lewis Mehl-Madrona explores the healing use of stories passed down from generation to generation in Native American culture and describes how we can apply this wisdom to empower and transform our own lives. A storytelling approach to transformation starts with how we were created and how we can re-create ourselves through the stories we tell. As we explore the archetypal characters and situations that populate the inner world of our stories, we can experience breakthroughs of healing and even miracles of transformation. This approach to healing runs counter to the current model of modern psychology. The stories we tell about ourselves may model our lives, but by introducing new characters and plots, we can come to see ourselves in a new way. LEWIS MEHL-MADRONA, M.D., Ph.D., is certified in family practice, geriatrics, and psychiatry and worked for years in rural emergency medicine. He is Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychiatry at the University of Arizona and is also affiliated with its College of Public Health. He is the author of Coyote Healing and the bestselling Coyote Medicine.

"Rather than a book of Native American stories, Coyote Wisdom successfully demonstrates how to . . . reinterpret and re-author the story of illness into one of health and well-being."