Restoring Sanity and Remembering Spirit in Psychology: Reclaiming Our Pre-Colonial Worldview

Abstract

This article focuses on rebalancing our colonial worldview assumptions about psychological healing with our pre-colonial, “Indigenous” worldview. It argues that uninvestigated dominant worldview precepts are why most approaches to psychology have not adequately addressed mental health problems. As a solution, the author offers ways to use metacognitive worldview reflection with the aid of a worldview chart with 40 contrasting but potentially complementary worldview precepts. Proposing that ceremonies and trance-based healing and learning have long been used by Indigenous peoples for living in balance, he shows how self-hypnosis (Concentration-Activated Transformation) can be used to achieve the transformations desired. Using first-person narrative, the author explains how he came to understand the importance of worldview precepts as related to human behavior and how psychology can be decolonized and transformed by addressing them.