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Traditional healing practices have existed in many or most cultures since their beginnings as a culture. However, some of these practices were forced to become hidden during colonial times or during an immigrant community’s early stages of living in the West.

Today, traditional healing practices such as Ayurveda, Shamanism, Spiritism, and many others are re-emerging in large North American and European cities, and are being practiced alongside contemporary Western forms of counselling and healthcare. These forms of traditional healing generally include a system of classifying and explaining illness and distress, as well as ideas about the best treatment for particular problems.

Evidence suggests that traditional healers in the West are visited by people both from their own cultural/ethnic communities and from other cultural groups. Members of immigrant communities may a) seek the help of a traditional healer instead of seeing a Western doctor or counsellor; b) go to a Western doctor or counsellor for certain illnesses/problems but to a traditional healer for others; or c) seek help from both Western and traditional practitioners for the same problem.

There are many reasons that a member of an ethnic minority community might go to a traditional healer instead of a Western doctor or counsellor. For instance, Western mental health practices like therapy might be seen as ineffective, or not suitable for particular types of problems. A person might be intimidated or mistrustful of Western practitioners, or there may be no services offered in his/her first language. Traditional healers are qualified and legitimate within their communities and are the first (and sometimes only) resource to which many immigrant Canadians turn for their healthcare and psychological/emotional needs.

Canada as a nation is becoming increasingly multicultural; it is, therefore, important for healthcare practitioners to become familiar with, and respect, indigenous healing practices. Such an understanding will equip practitioners to consult and collaborate with traditional healers, and to help their clients connect with these healers when appropriate.

In order to gain an understanding of traditional healers and their practice, we are interviewing healers from Caribbean, South Asian, and African cultural groups (10 healers from each group). We are also looking at some contemporary forms of traditional practices such as Ayurveda, meditation, and yoga, and how practitioners who are not from a South Asian culture practice these healing methods. All of the healers we are interviewing live and practice in Toronto and the surrounding area.

Because many of these healers are excluded from mainstream healthcare and “hidden” within their cultural communities, we have sought them out by personal networking within the communities – for instance, by attending religious services or contacting community leaders. We are trying to interview one man and one woman healer from each tradition, but this is not always possible.

The interview itself covers six main topics: reasons for becoming a healer, the type of people who are treated (i.e. patient or client groups), the process of healing, the healer’s training and practice, his or her role in health promotion and education, and his or her relationship to practitioners of Western approaches to health care. We will analyze our results using grounded theory methods, to identify themes that emerge from the interviews.

We anticipate that this research project will pave the way for collaborations that can help counsellors better meet the needs of Caribbean, South Asian, and African communities in Canada.

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