I first encountered Richard Katz when he was a professor at Harvard talking about healing and transformation at a time and place in which it was a revolutionary act, influencing the lives of many students. While we were intoxicated with our status as Harvard students becoming professional psychologists, he helped us to embrace vulnerability and humility with an appreciation of what Indigenous healers knew and what we didn't know. He showed us what he had been taught--how to say only what we know, no more and no less.
He became my mentor and we have journeyed together since then, even writing a book together on Synergy, Healing, and Empowerment. Now he offers his mentorship to you through his writing. He has published a beautiful book that integrates so much of what he has learned in an amazing life. I believe that this is a major contribution to revisioning mainstream psychology by returning it to its fundamental commitments to diversity, cultural meanings, human potential, and social justice.
Here are what some other people have to say about Indigenous Healing Psychology:
"Katz shares his extraordinary journey through world cultures and methods for inner and community work. Psychology will only be the better for encompassing such powerful Indigenous wisdom. This book is a mind-expanding gift to the reader, a well-researched offering to psychology, and a force for the good."
Daniel Goleman, Ph.D., Author of Emotional Intelligence
"A remarkable culmination of Katz's invaluable life-long work with Indigenous healers. Indigenous Healing Psychology is a brilliant, groundbreaking work connecting psychology to its roots so it can more truly become a force for healing and social change. A genuine invitation to a breathtaking journey that is a rare treasure. Just what psychology so desperately needs."
Joan Borysenko, Ph.D., New York Times bestselling author of Minding the Body, Mending the Mind
"A deeply honest book showing the greatest respect for indigenous knowledge.You can see how our traditional Anishnabe teachings can offer a path to healing psychology. Indigenous Healing Psychology shows how psychology can finally begin to heal our people."
Danny Musqua, Anishnabe Elder, Keeseekoose First Nation
"Katz convincingly argues that the inclusion of indigenous spiritual worldviews in mental health intervention and treatment will produce better client outcomes and better relationships among people no matter where they live. He offers the reader a profound challenge that is supported with indigenous ways of knowing and living. His long-awaited book is beautifully crafted, clearly written, convincing, and logically organized –– complete with a wealth of thought-provoking material written in a confident, authoritative voice. Anyone who carefully and thoughtfully studies these pages will come out a richer, well-informed person who will view spirit, the sacred, place, and connectedness through a discerning lens."
Joseph Trimble Ph.D., Distinguished Professor of Psychology at Western Washington University.
"Katz journeys into the heart of what psychology is and what it can be. He exposes the Western myopia that limits the espoused goals of psychology, i.e. understanding the human experience of mind, body, and our relationship to the world. His personal experiences of navigating formal psychology and his subsequent lessons learned from traditional healers point to the ignored facets of spirituality, humanism, culture, and community that cannot be separated from truly holistic human psychology and healing."
Dennis Norman EDD, ABPP, Faculty Chair of the Harvard University Native American Program and
Senior Psychologist at Massachusetts General Hospital
"This book is a must-read for all students of indigenous psychology. It teaches all the essentials.Consistent with the experiential focus of the wisdom tradition, Katz does not preach; he tells what he knows experientially.The reader is invited to join him on a personal journey that took him from the lecture halls of Harvard to paths in search of the healing wisdom of the Indigenous peoples.This account of Katz is a testimonial to the possibility that doing research in Indigenous psychology is a spiritual journey that can be profoundly fulfilling and transformative for the reader as well."
Louise Sundararajan, Ph.D., Ed.D, Fellow of the American Psychological Association, Founder and Chair of the task force on Indigenous psychology
For more on the book click on the title: Indigenous Healing Psychology