Page 565 - Total War on PTSD

client’s body, with some light touching involved (permission to touch is usually requested in advance). There may also be singing or chanting, and at some point during the treatment power may be restored by blowing gently over the chest and at the top of the head.
At the end of the session, the client may choose to share their experience of the work with the practitioner. The practitioner may also offer a few directions or follow up suggestions, if guided to do so by the spirits. It is not usually necessary to talk a lot, since the work is accomplished spiritually at the level of the soul, and a quiet peaceful space can facilitate the client’s integration of the experience. The practitioner may recommend that more than one session is needed, as was described in Dan’s case story above, or sometimes a single session is all that is required at this time. The timing and number of sessions is directed by the practitioner’s helping spirits.
How does someone become a shaman? How do I find one? Can shamanic training be helpful for Veterans with PTSD?
“How do I know if someone is a shaman?” Michael Harner was asked. “It’s simple,” he said. “Do they journey to other worlds? And do they perform miracles?” When a person starts to perform miracles of healing, consistently getting good results, then that person might be named a shaman by his or her community.
In indigenous cultures, people became shamans in various ways. They might survive a life-threatening illness, undergo initiations or physical challenges, inherit the role, pay a master shaman for the knowledge, or be apprenticed to an elder shaman. In contemporary society, though these processes may still be a factor, people may feel drawn to shamanism as a healing practice, often after receiving a miraculous healing themselves, or perhaps have a transformative experience that they discover is
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