“It has been found that patients receiving supplemental traditional therapy have a more rapid recovery, experience fewer complications, and are less likely to suffer depression after a bout with illness”

“It has been found that patients receiving supplemental traditional therapy have a more rapid recovery,  experience fewer complications, and are less likely to suffer depression after a bout with illness” (p. 136). 

2. “It is a fundamental assumption in Navajo cosmology that the individual is intimately and meaningfully connected to everything else. Therefore, if a person is not well, that person’s family, clan, and community are also not well” (p. 137). 

3. “The Navajo patient’s role is not a passive one (as is typically the case in western therapies): the patient, or one-sung-over, is present for and actively participates in all ceremonial rites. He or she must intone the prayers, sing the songs, and perform the ritual actions necessary for restoring order and wellness” (p. 137). 

4. “It may be difficult for some Euro-American health practitioners to credit the therapeutic effectiveness of a ceremony such as Nightway. Exponents of a science-based model of health care might acknowledge the benefit of such things as herbal infusions, inhalants, and sweat baths, but the healing value of words, objects, and ritualized movements might be more difficult to accept” (p. 145-146). 

5. “The holistic movement in U.S. health care is the result of an increasing awareness that our germ theory of disease and our compartmentalized approach to therapy is inadequate in many cases. What is being searched for is a means of treating a patient on all levels: physical, mental, emotional, social, and spiritual. We are searching for something that Navajos have never lost” (p. 146)

REFERENCE: Francis, S. T. (2004). The role of dance in a Navajo healing ceremonial. Handbook of culture, therapy, and healing, 135-149