Treatment centre endorses eclectic ways to heal

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Fran Brown is sitting on a bench under a tent-like canopy waiting to enter the sweat lodge. She is in week four of a five-week residential program at the Tsow-Tun le lum treatment centre on Vancouver Island called Qual-aun or "moving beyond the trauma of our past." Brown, 51, has a history of verbal and sexual abuse that lasted for most of her childhood. At Tsow-Tun le lum she has started to come to grips with her pain for the first time.

"It's really scary," she said about entering the dim sweat lodge. "I have so much fear of darkness but I'm very glad I came here. I'm beginning to let go of the past."

Wilson Jack, 34, is also waiting. Wilson was sent to the notorious residential school at Port Alberni at age 10 and lived there for seven years. Until recently he deadened his pain with drugs and alcohol. Now, having completed a drug and alcohol program, Wilson is working on healing the trauma.

Counsellor Nola Jeffrey will also enter the sweat lodge with these people she works with. The sweat lodge, she explained, is part of the spiritual healing that takes place at Tsow-Tun le lum. Another of the most powerful spiritual components of the program takes place during the second week and is called Welcome Home.

"So many people were never, ever welcomed home," Jeffrey said.

"They were taken away, whether it was to a residential school, whether it was into the prison system or whether it was foster care, and many of them were never welcomed home. It is very powerful. We have an Elder who does a chant to ask all the ancestors to come into the ceremony to be there with us."

Jeffrey calls the programs extremely successful. "I have seen people come in with a tremendous amount of fear and have had the trauma in their face every day and that have walked through that pain and can have some happiness and joy."

Everyone who enters the Qual-aun program, the only trauma program of its kind in Canada, has been clean and sober for at least six months. Many of those in the program have participated in Tsow-Tun le lum's drug and alcohol program. That program, which started when the centre opened 15 years ago, has enjoyed unprecedented success.

Executive director Charles McLaughlin declined to cite statistics, but he indicated the success rate is unusually high and continues to be high years after people have taken the program.

Psychologist Dorina Medland is one of the people at Tsow-Tun le lum who provides more traditional western care through one- on-one counselling. But she said the power of the programs at the centre is the integration of the western with the First Nations traditional healing methods.

"The goal here is to provide a very safe environment for the people to do some pretty difficult healing," Medland said.

"So many people have such horrific backgrounds and experiences that it takes a while for them to feel safe enough to trust us a little bit. I think the First Nations healing methods work better than the western concepts. Like Chinese medicine, this is more than 5,000 years old. It's not a new thing on the block. It's steeped in tradition and there's more than one way to heal - there are many ways to heal."

The biggest challenge for the Qual-aun program is relapse. Many clients return to remote communities where there is no support. But then many people come back to work on more and deeper issues and take the program two or three times, becoming healthier each time.

Another strong component of the Tsow-Tun le lum programs is the Elder-in-residence. Elders such as Delores Keitleh stay at the centre for two weeks at a time. They take their meals with the residents and are there to offer spiritual support. Many of the Elders have been abused, have attended residential schools, and have suffered the same pain as the clients.

Everyone at Tsow-Tun le lum from the receptionist to the cook has had counsellor training. As a result, clients who come to the centre are constantly in a safe and healing environment.

eitleh said, "My belief in why there is the calmness here is that they do a lot of traditional healing. It's really important because that's where we got lost because we don't see that on the street. And here they use different methods from everybody's tribe and the teachings from different places."

McLaughlin calls the healing methods at Tsow-Tun le lum "eclectic." Not only does the staff blend First Nations and western healing, they adapt the healing methods to each individual. Whatever works is what they use, McLaughlin said, including 12-step programs.

Funding for the programs comes from the Aboriginal Healing Foundation and Medical Services, and is available for any Native or part-Native person and for those married to or living common-law with a person of Native ancestry.

McLaughlin attributes the success of Tsow-Tun le lum to a number of factors: the support and direction provided by the Elders; a competent and stable board of directors; trained and unified staff; a blending of traditional healing methods with modern therapeutic methods; the fact that the centre already exists as a healing community; and that the programs are based on First Nations values, principles, and ceremonies.