Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries

Helping professional or shaman?

June 12, 2026 Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries

Here, the reader is taken through the history of shamanistic beliefs and practices to highlight its parallels with the contemporary helping professions. Seeking their power to heal, exorcise evil spirits, and commune with the dead, some consider shamans offer a mystical means of dealing with the vicissitudes of life. As can be said of people undergoing psychoanalytic treatment, altered states...