PsychologistSay...
Everyday life can be tricky - impossible even, and talking about it can be even more challenging. Trust me; I get it - being human has its challenges. Hello, I’m Dr. Tami, a Licensed Clinical Psychologist. I create candid conversations about what Psychologists are Saying related to everyday situations. I combine Indigenous & Modern Day Psychology - helping us understand behaviors impacting ourselves and others. PS: We all have problems, so let's talk about them!
PsychologistSay...
The Spiritual Dimension of Mental Health
Have you ever felt that something was missing in your approach to mental health? Something beyond talk therapy and medication? You're not alone. Drawing from both my clinical psychology training and deep Anishinaabe roots, I explore how spirituality—not necessarily religion—can be the missing piece in many healing journeys.
Spirituality creates meaning, connection to something greater, and a profound sense of belonging that traditional therapeutic approaches often overlook. Research consistently shows that people who maintain a coherent sense of meaning demonstrate better mental health outcomes and stronger resilience. When I ask my clients "what gives you strength when nothing else works?" or "where do you turn for guidance in tough situations?", these questions often unlock powerful resources they hadn't fully recognized.
My personal journey illustrates this perfectly. After experiencing a devastating medical trauma that disconnected me from my body and identity, my path back to wholeness wasn't just through conventional therapy and medication. My healing required reconnecting with my spiritual self through ceremonies, stories, and what I call "turtle medicine"—the sacred space where grief and resilience meet. This integration of Indigenous worldview with psychological training became the foundation for my practice at Indigenized Behavioral Healing.
While Western psychology trained me to look for pathology, my Anishinaabe teachings showed me how to seek balance and interconnectedness. True healing happens not just in the brain, but in the heart, body, and spirit. I invite you to consider what creates your spiritual self and how developing this dimension might bring balance you didn't know you needed. When we care for the spirit, we transform the mind. Subscribe now and join me next episode as we continue this vital conversation about holistic healing approaches that honor our complete selves.
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The following is a series of candid conversations. The content is intended for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for seeking help from a mental health care professional. To learn more info regarding additional disclaimers, privacy policies and terms and conditions, please visit our website. Bonjour, hello and welcome to Psychologist Say, the podcast where psychology meets heart, culture and healing. I'm your host, dr Tammy, clinical psychologist and CEO of Indigenized Behavioral Healing. I'm your host, dr Tammy, clinical psychologist and CEO of Indigenized Behavioral Healing. I'm a woman rooted deeply in Anishinaabe teachings.
Speaker 1:Today I want to speak from a place both professionally and personally, about spirituality and how it can deeply impact your mental health journey. In my years of clinical practice, I've witnessed how mental health is often approached from purely a cognitive or behavioral lens. But there's another layer, a deeper, quieter dimension the spiritual self, and when we ignore it we often miss a vital piece of someone's healing journey. So when I speak about spirituality, I don't mean religion, though for many people, their religious traditions may play a key part in their spiritual identity and the roles they take within their identity and community and how they offer up their spiritual moments and their spiritual self and another way, spirituality, in the way I hold it. It's about meaning and making connection to something greater than yourself and the pursuit of an inner peace, some type of purpose and definitely a feeling of belonging to either an entity, a belief or a practice, and I believe it definitely takes a lot of personal humility to get to a place to be on a pure spiritual journey. Now, in psychology terms, we know that having a sense and meaning, a coherence in life, is definitely correlated with better mental health outcomes, and we can see this through many people who have shared personal stories of survival, who have built resilience through tragedy and who have used their own adversity in life to start to impact a healing that they weren't even aware they had the ability to take on. Part of that is people, I believe, tapping into a spiritual essence, and that's why, behind a deep struggle that we have, personally can begin a healing journey. Personally can begin a healing journey. Often it's the lens that we choose to take and how we perceive healing and its connection of struggle to a bigger purpose. So in clinical work, I often ask my patients and my clients and people at workshops what gives you strength when there is nothing else that can work for you, and where do you go, both internally and externally, when you need some type of guidance in a tough situation that you're dealing with. And I can also ask people about what has your community taught you? What kind of traditions do you value? Have you been giving any teachings that you can carry out? Has anyone in your family or your past or your present shared anything meaningful with you that can guide you through this? Questions? And they matter, and if a clinician is leaving them out, it's something that you may want to introduce yourself into your work with that person or whoever you're deciding to discuss your spirituality with Now.
Speaker 1:Over a decade ago, I experienced a medical trauma that disconnected me from my own body, my sense of self and even my clinical identity for a while. What brought me back? Not just cognitive behavioral therapy, not just medications, but a deep connection to my spiritual self, my ceremonies, my stories, self, my ceremonies, my stories, my sisterhood and my reliance on the people around me who carry spirit and fill my spiritual self. At that time in my life, I had to turn inward and move upward. I had to look into the teachings of my ancestors, into a term that I call turtle medicine, and it's a sacredness of the grief and resilience that I carried and experienced in my life. That in itself is a big part of my story and much more than what we have to get into today. But I want to introduce you to this so that the listeners get to know personally a little more about my story and why I practice psychology in the way that I choose to.
Speaker 1:So as a psychologist, I was trained to look for pathology. That's part of our westernized training. That's part of what we need to do to be able to build and create careers and livelihoods from doing psychological work. But as an Anishinaabe woman and a person of my community and my people, I've always been taught to look for balance and that interconnectedness between everything that exists in this universe. So that means healing just doesn't happen in the brain. It happens in the heart, in the body and in the spirit. This integration of Indigenous worldview with my psychological background became the foundation of the clinical approach that we carry on here at Indigenized Behavioral Healing.
Speaker 1:So, overall, I want to take this moment to ask you to look at some things in your life that creates a spiritual self. What are some key, important factors that you want to consider in developing a deeper sense of that, if you're called to do so and knowing that, in psychology, a belief in something can help create a sense of balance that we didn't know we were in need of, and it's one thing we don't want to take lightly, and it is an area to do some research on and some self-exploration in order to aid your spiritual journey. I will be having additional conversations on this topic in our next episode, but I do want to thank you for listening today and, ps, when we care for the spirit, we can transform our mind. Miigwech, thanks for listening.
