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continue practicing safely. She has seen significant results with her patients and finds that what she does

makes the most sense for her and the clients that come to her.

Rankin also makes an important distinction in a different article about the difference between healing and

curing. This is a topic that has come up many times throughout class and I believe that it has very strong root

in psychology. She explains that, “healing and curing are inherently different. Curing means eliminating all

evidence of disease, while healing means becoming whole." She talks about the different medicines that can

be handed out in order to treat certain illness but describes many of them as “merely a band-aid”. She goes on

to say that, “most health conditions are not so easily cured — things like migraine headaches, cancer, high

blood pressure, diabetes, fibromyalgia, chronic pelvic pain, arthritis, and emphysema. Most health outcomes

are much more successfully treated if they are healed from the core.” An example that she gives of this is,

“you can give someone with high blood pressure three pills that barely control their hypertension, but until

they learn to manage the high stress of their job in healthy ways (or quit their job), you're unlikely to "cure"

their high blood pressure.”

This approach confirms much of what my classmates and I have leaned towards believing; that there is no

ignoring the deeper aspects of illness. It is very important that when you are given medicine or are being

treated for something, that you are able to see the deeper root of what is causing the problem. From that, a

holistic process of healing can cure where there is a true understanding of the illness and the patient and what

is needed to move forward. This shows how your active consciousness is just as important as what is being

treated in your inactive consciousness. Psychologically, it is possible and practical to be able to work with any

treatment that you are provided with to help holistically improve your own life. This concept is what shamans

have figured out whether or not they are using the most advanced medicines.

Psychology and shamanism come from two very different worlds. While it is easy to point out the differences

and the way that these two practices drastically differ from one another, it is just as beneficial to notice the

similarities between these two. From the way that illnesses are treated to the rituals of healing we already live

in a world that often combines many of these practices. The best way for our world to advance as a unified

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