Integrating Cree worldview with western psychology: Q&A with a psychotherapist

Behavioural scientist Louis Busch weaves Indigenous teachings from Knowledge Keepers across Turtle Island with western psychological practice.

Busch, a Bear Clan member of Nisichawayasihk Cree Nation, offers a framework for moving through pain rather than around it.

In this Q&A, the psychotherapist talks about his book, Carry Your Heart: Indigenous Helping Wisdom and the Science of Psychological Flexibility , that integrates these two ways of knowing.

The Conversation Canada: What does it mean to “carry your heart” in life? Louis Busch: That teaching came from a relative of mine.

The Cree word is kita-pimōtātamān kitēb .

It loosely translates to “walking while carrying your heart.” In a practical sense, it means noticing the urge to flee from our difficult experiences, whether a worry, a bad memory, grief, a difficult experience or an intrusive thought.

Often, we are very motivated to find a distraction, a positive affirmation, medication — whatever we can get relief from.

And that’s normal, but I think to “carry your heart” means to pause, look at [the difficult experiences], and then hold them in a gentle way and make a bit of space for them. [While working on this book], I really loved seeing the synergies of some of these First Nations teachings and the things that I had learned in acceptance and commitment therapy .

We’ve been trained from Day One [that] the pursuit of happiness is the ultimate goal of being alive.

And if you’re not doing that, there’s something wrong with you, right? You are broken.

You’re pathological.

You have some kind of dysfunction, and it’s inside you.

It’s this thing that you have.

So to ask somebody to do something different, it’s like flipping the idea of healing on its head.