How to Know If You Need a Shamanic Practitioner or a Therapist
Honestly, you may need both. Here's how to tell which one to call first.
I get asked the question, 'Do I need a shamanic practitioner or a therapist?' often enough that I want to answer it directly, without steering you toward me as a shamanic practitioner by default. These two kinds of support do different work, and knowing which one fits what you're dealing with right now will save you time.
See a therapist first if:
You're in crisis, in active danger to yourself or others, or dealing with a diagnosable condition that needs clinical treatment.
You want to understand and talk through the story of what happened to you, in detail, with someone trained to help you make sense of it.
You're looking for tools and strategies to manage a specific set of symptoms day to day.
A good therapist is genuinely the right first call here, and I'd tell you that even if you asked me directly.
Consider shamanic work if:
You've already done real work, understand your story well, can explain your patterns clearly and articulately, and something is still stuck underneath all of that understanding.
Something in you keeps repeating despite insight. A grief, a disconnection, or a pattern that behaves like it isn't fully yours, no matter how much sense you've made of it on paper.
You're not looking for another explanation. You've had enough explanations. You want the thing itself to actually shift.
Shamanic practitioners and therapists are not competitors
Many of the people I work with are also in therapy, or have been, and the two support each other well. Therapy tends to work with the conscious mind and the story. Shamanic work tends to work underneath the story, with what the story is a symptom of. Understanding a pattern and dissolving a pattern aren't the same task, and most people benefit from having support for both.
If you're still not sure
A short conversation is usually enough to tell. If what you describe sounds clinical or urgent, I'll tell you plainly and point you toward the right kind of help. If it sounds like something underneath the story, we can talk about what a session would actually involve.
If you're not sure which door to walk through, that's a completely reasonable place to start from. You're welcome to reach out and we can figure it out together.
Kathy Postelle Rixon is Chair of The Philosophical Society: Oxford, a researcher of consciousness and physics, and shamanic practitioner. You can contact her at kathy@magicinharmony.com or visit her website at www.magicinharmony.com.
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