Connecting to the Spiritual and the Sacred through the Straight Path: Advancing the Helping Professions through Connections with Indigenous Nations
Abstract
When I saw the cover of the book authored by the clinical psychologist Richard Katz (1999) titled, The Straight Path of the Spirit: Ancestral Wisdom and Healing Traditions in Fiji lying on the floor of a local bookstore, I was quickly drawn to it; the book must have fallen on the floor before I walked down the slender aisle in search of another book. Maybe it was waiting for me and somehow or other ‘mysteriously knew’ that I would follow the path to it. I knew of Richard Katz’s passion and interest in traditional healing through his earlier work, titled Boiling Energy: Community healing among the Kalahari Kung, published in 1982. In his first and subsequent books, Richard explains and elaborates on his firm belief that healing is a process of transition towards meaning, balance, wholeness, and connectedness and that these key elements are deeply rooted in the healing traditions and practices of countless traditional shamans and healers.
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