Taming the Hungry Ghost: Trauma and Addiction / Forward Into the Past: Shamanism as Modern Healing

Plenary: 9am – 10am – Taming the Hungry Ghost: Trauma and Addiction
Q&A: 12pm – 12:30pm
Workshop: 3pm – 5:00pm – Forward Into the Past: Shamanism as Modern Healing

Taming the Hungry Ghost: Trauma and Addiction
Addiction is neither a choice, as the legal system presents it, nor an inherited disease of the brain, as the mainstream medical perspective has it. It is a complex psycho-physiological response to trauma, as the latter affects brain- and personality development. Fundamentally, it is a doomed attempt at self-regulation. Treatment needs to address the healing of trauma, and not focus exclusively on the
behaviors—substance use or not—related to addiction. Take home pearls will focus on the understanding interpersonal neurobiology in the causation of trauma and the essential importance of the therapeutic relationship as the basis of healing.

Forward Into the Past: Shamanism as Modern Healing
Shamanic modalities have been used in traditional cultures for hundreds of years and are now increasingly popularized in the industrialized advanced countries as well. Today, there is also great interest and study of the use of man-made psychedelics substances in healing. The principles on which such modalities are based have now been validated by Western scientific approaches such as psychoneuroimmunology and interpersonal neurobiology. While no panacea, shamanic and psychedelic treatments can offer an important and, frequently, transformative, approach to treatment. Clinical pearls here will emerge from the interactive portion of this workshop and include understanding the difference between various shamanic modalities for various clinical conditions.