Skip to main content

Transcript: Jeffrey Henderson, M.D.

The Lakota Spirit Restoration ceremony addresses the loss of spirit in young people


[Henderson:]
Every once in a while because of a variety of different causes— bad family dynamics, substance use in the family, abuse in the family or whatnot—that can cause the loss of a spirit in a young person, which will send them spinning into this cycle of behavioral problems, school performance problems, etc. So there’s a spirit restoration ceremony that can be done on the youth. That is done then on the youth, and then they follow them out in time, reevaluate their behavior, reevaluate their school performance. And they’ve been doing a really good job at helping to straighten the course of behaviorally-challenged adolescents.