Prozac Plus: The Shaman Within
- Gina Greenlee, Author
- 3 days ago
- 5 min read
Excerpt from Art Heals, The Shaman Within:
Students and colleagues over the years have repeatedly asked certain questions that have helped to clarify my thoughts about the relationship between creative arts therapy and shamanism. I would like to give a sense of these questions and my responses to them by re-creating them in dialouge form.
Question: Did you go into a tribal society to study with a shaman?
Shaun McNiff: No. I found the shaman within myself, within the people that I work with, and within the things that we do together.
Question: Do you work as a shaman?
Shaun McNiff: I do not refer to myself as a shaman.
Question: Then how do you use the term?
Shaun McNiff: I see the shaman as an archetypal figure, a universal aspect of art and healing that helps to deepen and expand the image of the creative arts therapist. Shaman has become a cross-cultural term that gives a common name to indigenous healers throughout the world.
Question: Is the term useful?
Shaun McNiff: It draws attention to the universal aspects of life, like the identification of illness with a loss of soul.
Question: What do you mean by soul?
Shaun McNiff: Soul is something very old, mysterious, deep, and perhaps eternal. It can be imagined as the essential nature of a person, place, event or thing. I think that the idea of “the unconscious” is a secular attempt to replace soul with a scientific name. I prefer to use the word unconscious as an operational term that refers to things outside awareness. Soul manifests itself through the arts and religion, and perhaps even through illness. The shamanic, artistic, mystical, and ancient philosophical traditions have all acknowledged the existence of soul and the skills needed to engage it.
The term shamanism refers to an important universal aspect of the process of art and healing.
Question: Do you train shamans?
Shaun McNiff: For years I gave courses on shamanism and the creative arts therapies. I was pleased by how the title of the course attracted committed students. These people were generally interested in spiritual aspects of psychotherapeutic work and healing. They affirmed my belief in the interdependence of shamanism, the arts, religion, and psychotherapy.
Occasionally I ran into difficulties with people who thought I was giving an anthropology course on rituals or instruction in shamanic techniques. Right now I do not use the term shamanism in describing my courses because the phenomenon of the shaman has become completely integrated into everything I do. I find the shaman in the group, the images we make, and in myself. The term is so strong that it can bias people’s perceptions of what we do together. I am more interested in the phenomena themselves and not so much in what we call them. The term shamanism refers to an important universal aspect of the process of art and healing.
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I do not use the term shamanism in describing my courses because the phenomenon of the shaman has become completely integrated into everything I do.
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Question: Has shamanism furthered your understanding of the creative arts therapies?
Shaun McNiff: Profoundly. Shamanism focuses on experience more than concepts and it has helped me to go much deeper in the practice of the work. Studying the connections to shamanism has shaped my depth psychology of creative arts therapy. For five years I worked with an experiemental shamnic group in which communication took place through drumming, movement, the free use of the voice, enactment, touch, visions, trance, and other expressive activities associated with shamanism.
Over time I notoiced that the rhythmic pulse of drumming and chanting were what most powerfully evoked the visions and enactments that typify a shamanic ritual. Sometimes our group resembled a primal theater, and at other times it was like a meditaiton circle. Whatever needed to be manifested came forward and was engaged by the group.
Question: How do you lead this kind of group?
Shaun McNiff: First of all, I have to take the lead in establishing and constantly maintaining the safety of the space so that people can work freely. Clear and supportive leadership is crucial.
Shamanism has helped me to become committed to the eternal therapeutic structures of rhythm, movement, storytelling, ritual, dreaming, free vocal expression, performance, and image-making. They are classical shamanic phenomena that can be engaged directly and without contrivances. I am a purist when it comes to action. We begin with as little direction as possible. The shamanic structure is always present within us. We learn how to let it freely manifest itself. The simplicity and openness of my approach to the arts and my interest in ritual and the entire gamut of expressive phenomena may be my closest links to shaminism.
I use drums and other percussion instruments while people paint. The rhythms help to liberate creativity an imagery. Drums encourage encourage vocal improvisation, movement, performance, and the full pantheon of artistic imagination. The use of more than one art form is as natural as the simultaneous actions of breathing, walkng, listening, and looking.
Question: You seem more comfortable with the shamanic tradition than with much of what happens today in therapy.
The shamanic structure is always present within us. We learn how to let it freely manifest itself.
Shaun McNiff: Because shamanism honors the use of sacred and imaginal forces in healing, I suppose I feel more connected to these practices than to the science pervading much of contemporary therapy. However, therapists are very pragmatic people. They tend to be open and respectful to what people bring to their sessions. Indigenous and modern approaches to healing are united in their striving to help people with their afflictions. But the ideas and theories that inform the therapeutic professions and their educational institutions are often limited, lacking any appreciation of or alignment with the historical phenomena of healing.
Many people want to see professionals who quickly diagnose their problems and then offer a treatment plan. Although the strategic approach can be helpful and necessary in treating certain medical problems, I find it less appealing when dealing iwht afflictions of the soul. In keeping with the human need for meaning, the shamanic loss of soul may be attributed to the absence of sacredness and imagination in a person’s life. A yearning for these qualities is what underlies the increased interest in shamanism that we see today.
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“Whenever illness is associated with a loss of soul, art emerges spontaneously as a remedy.” Shaun McNiff, Art Heals
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