Podcast: Narrative Medicine with Lisa Weinert
Featuring: Dr. Lewis Mehl-Madrona
Storyteller, Native-American healer, and Stanford University School of Medicine MD, Dr. Lewis Mehl-Madrona is something like the Fairy Godfather of the Narrative Medicine Movement, and an unsung hero of the integrative health movement in the US. I had the great pleasure of presenting with Lewis at the debut Program in Narrative Medicine at Kripalu this past June and was honored to sit down with him to talk about the wisdom that comes through story for my latest edition of the podcast Narrative Medicine with Lisa Weinert, listen here.
Way ahead of his time. Dr. Mehl-Madrona is a visionary in the field of Narrative Medicine. He has been propagating the role of story in healing since he graduated from Stanford University School of Medicine in 1975 (as Stanford’s youngest ever peacetime graduate). Throughout his rich and important career, he has carried a triple-edge sword.
He is at once an irrefutable intellect and celebrated writer, he has been keenly observing our climate of healing and medicine over six celebrated titles and counting. International bestselling author Andrew Weil, MD proclaims that Lewis’s autobiography Coyote Medicine “must be brought to all those who seek true health”.
Lewis has also carried a heavy clinical load of patients for over twenty years and knows first hand what it means to use story with individual patient’s day in and day out. Thirdly, Lewis, an American Indian from the Cherokee and Lokata tribe, is committed to the ritual, magic and spirituality of the Native American tradition and layers everything he does with that perspective. In his work, he explores the role of story and community in the healing process again and again.
“Hearing and telling stories are integral to healing. When hearing stores about healing from people who seem like us, we become inspired to believe that our own healing is possible.” — Lewis Mehl-Madrona
Here he talks about his history with Narrative Medicine and his upcoming 15-month workshop at CATA in New York City “North American Healing Arts”.
About Dr. Lewis Mehl-Madrona:
Lewis’s background is illustrious, and diverse. At Stanford, he trained in family medicine, psychiatry, and clinical psychology. He completed his residencies in family medicine and in psychiatry at the University of Vermont College of Medicine., his life’s work, outlined in his award-winning memoir Coyote Medicine has been focused on the interconnection between native American healing and western medicine. He continues to work with aboriginal communities to develop uniquely aboriginal styles of healing and health care for use in those communities. He is interested in the relation of healing through dialogue in community and psychosis and has done groundbreaking work in mental health, addiction communities.He is the author of Coyote Medicine, Coyote Healing and Coyote Wisdom, a trilogy of books on what Native culture has to offer the modern world. He has also written Narrative Medicine, Healing the Mind through the Power of Story: the Promise of Narrative Psychiatry, and, his most recent book with Barbara Mainguy, Remapping Your Mind: the Neuroscience of Self-Transformation through Story.
Listen to our podcast Narrative Medicine with Lisa Weinert here: https://soundcloud.com/rarebirdlit/lisa-weinert-in-conversation-with-lewis-mehl-madrona
