Healers, Shaman and rites of passage. How tribal and indigenous cultures approach mental illness with Phil Borges

Welcome to episode 225 with Phil Borges, a documentary photographer and filmmaker, recognised for his documentation of indigenous peoples and tribal cultures, with a particular focus on Tibet, human rights, and women's empowerment issues.  His work is exhibited in museums and galleries worldwide.

While Phil was documenting the various human rights abuses faced by tribal and indigenous cultures around the world, he began to meet their healers and visionaries-the people we often refer to as shamans.

He was surprised to learn that many of the shamans he met had been identified in their youth as ‘being gifted’ by having visions, hearing voices and experiencing intense mood swings-what we would call a psychotic episode.

His documentary ‘Crazywise’ explores the growing severity of a global mental health crisis that is dominated by biomedical psychiatry and looks at some the ways that indigenous peoples’ acceptance of non-ordinary states of consciousness, along with rituals and metaphors that form deep connections to nature, to each other, and to ancestors, is something we can learn from.

In this episode Phil joins me to chat about his journey from dentist school in San Francisco to photographing the emerging hippie movement of the 1960’s and how this led him to exploring and documenting tribal and indigenous cultures around the world.

We talk about meeting the Dalai Lama and the differences in how mental illness is viewed and treated in different cultures compared to our approach in the West.

And we talk about connection, compassion, community, what can happen when we reframe mental breakdown as a spiritual awakening and how he brought all of these ideas together for his documentary.

Watch Crazywise here:  CRAZYWISE – Documentary Film

Learn more about Phil here:  Home | PHIL BORGES PRODUCTIONS storytelling for social change

Phil has several Tedx talks that you can watch here: Psychosis or Spiritual Awakening: Phil Borges at TEDxUMKC - YouTube

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Thanks for listening!