How We Help

Our purpose at Community & Behavioral Services is to nurture wellness and cultural healing for all tribal citizens, families, and communities. We are dedicated to offering culturally responsive care that addresses the legacy of historical/intergenerational trauma and the challenges of life today, through healing practices grounded in relational, tribal, elder, and community support. Our program values holding each other up during healing journeys, as we are all connected on the path to balance, wellness, and connection with Spirit.

Our healing work is grounded in the following principals:

Wholistic Healing

Whether you are interested in individual, couple, family, or group counseling, our goal is to help you identify and address the collective symptoms that challenge your life, and collaboratively develop a plan that returns you (and your loved ones) to balance and wellness. Our Healers recognize the importance of treating the whole person (mind, body, spirit) while acknowledging deep connection to tribal values, land, and relationships with others including family, clan, and Tribe.

Our goal is to instill hope in individuals and families seeking healing and aim for our services to lead you into a satisfying personal journey to wellness.

Intertconnectedness

Quite often, feelings of shame, guilt, sorrow, anger, and hopelessness can result in a forgetting of your true nature, and your interconnectedness to all people, animals, land, and Spirit. This separation adds further pain and suffering to your life, because we are not meant to address such challenges alone. Our healing work acknowledges the necessity of connecting to our past ancestors, and the future generations that depend on us to heal our Soul Wounds, so they do not inherit continued suffering and experiences with intergenerational trauma. As Healers, we also acknowledge our own wounds, and draw upon our personal healing experiences to form a therapeutic space where we co-create a healing path, ultimately guided by Spirit.

Culture Heals

We are a community of Healers that draw energy and wisdom from our culture and way of life, known as “Haa Kusti” among the Tlingit and “Tlagw íitl’ xíinangaa Gíidang” among the Haida. Culture heals through Storytelling, Talking Circles, Prayer, Ceremony, and other tribal practices, ensuring we are walking towards the good life through our courageous work together.

We have chosen to name our online addiction program Culture Heals, because key to overcoming struggles with substances or addictive behaviors is connecting deeply to your tribal values and Spirit.

Suicide Prevention & Education

Suicide Prevention & Education CBS Healing Center is here to support you and your family, we create culturally responsive and psychologically safe space to help restore hope in individuals and families seeking healing. We aim to address suicide and mental health with compassion and healing through our cultural values.

An essential part of healing work is believing, It Is Within You (I TÓO YÉI YATEE), we have the medicine within us to heal our wounds. Sometimes the pain of our past prevents us from connecting with our spirit, our medicine within us. Asking for help is hard. We don’t know what to say, we don’t know what people will say or how they will react. Often, we worry about being a burden, we feel guilty, shameful, and as if we need to deal with our pain alone. CBS Healing Center is here to “Hold Each Other Up”; “Restore Our Strength in Mind, Body & Spirit.”

Decolonizing Trauma

Critical to healing work is uncovering the degree to which symptoms and life challenges are rooted in historical or intergenerational trauma. Such traumas are the unhealed cumulative pain, inherited from the dehumanizing colonization suffered by our ancestors. Systematic attacks including the taking of land, suppressing ceremonial practices, language, and traditions, and children being taking from their villages and placed in boarding schools inflicted unmeasurable suffering that continues today. The legacy of physical, sexual, and emotional abuse that often occurred against children is perpetuated in present day symptoms, often numbed by substances and addictive behaviors.

If you have never considered how the unhealed Soul Wound of historical trauma may be fueling your present symptoms, please come talk to one of our Healers. We will help you understand what happened and the importance of decolonizing trauma work. And we’ll guide you on a path where healing is not about what is wrong with you, but about embracing your inherent resilience and strength.

Western Medicine

Colonization has included an overreliance on western medicine to address the very symptoms and life challenges that have emerged from historical trauma. If you have sought help in the past and continue to struggle, it’s important to know that western practices often fail when disconnected from indigenous ways of healing. But when they are combined, treatment can be transformative.

Our Healers are trained to integrate the best of western medicine, including evidence-based behavioral therapies, referral for medications, and therapeutic approaches, with culturally responsive interventions to optimize your care.

The Wound is the Cure

Key to our healing work is the belief that you already have within you the medicine to heal your wounds, because the ultimate medicine is Spirit which is your essential nature. When Soul Wounds lead to symptoms of fear, depression, anger, addiction, acting out, and hopelessness, a veil overshadows your heart and disconnects you from Spirit, the source of your own healing. It’s why our Healers are skilled at helping you better understand and interpret the messages inherent in your wounds, bringing light to the shadows of your suffering, and reconnecting you with Spirit, the loving force that heals all.

To make an appointment to see one of our Healers or to learn more, call us at (907) 463-7305 or visit the Appointments page to get started.