Guided by the concept of synergy, this groundbreaking collection explores alternatives in the areas of counseling, education, and community health and development. Synergy refers to the process of two or more things coming together to create a new, greater, and often-unexpected whole. When synergy exists, formerly scarce resources can expand and become renewable and accessible to all.

Drawing upon the diverse cultural experiences of Aboriginal groups in North America and around the world, these compelling narratives provide practical insights into the emergence of synergy and obstacles to its existence.Synergy, Healing and Empowermentoffers invaluable guidance in the pursuit of a just and equitable society.

Section I: Synergy, Healing, and Empowerment: Starting Points
1. Synergy and empowerment: Renewing and expanding the community’s healing resources,Richard Katz
2. Synergy and healing: A perspective on Western health care,Richard Katz and Niti Seth
Section II: Synergistic Identities
3. Balancing world views and identities in becoming a culturally divewse counsellor,Stephen Murphy-Shigematsu
4. Feminism is for everybody: Aboriginal Women, feminism, and diversity,Verna St. Denis
5. Teacher as healer: Expanding educational resources,Richard Katz and Verna St. Denis
Section III: Education as Transformation: A Pathway toward Synergy
6. Education as transformation: An approach to training healers,Richard Katz
7. The experience of vulnerability: A key to the education of health professionals,Richard Katz and Stephen Murphy-Shigematsu
8. A narrative approach to transformational education: Cultural training for health care providers,Stephen Murphy-Shigematsu
9. Training culturally sensitive counsellors: A case study of the Masters of Aboriginal Social Work (MASW) program,Richard Katz, Danny Musqua, and Tania Lafontaine
Section IV: Synergistic Community
10. Breaking psychology’s stranglehold over therapeutic services to Indigenous peoples: Developing pathways toward collaboration,Richard Katz
11. The contribution of synergy to the experience of empowerment,Peter Cornish
12. Women’s talk (baira ni vato): A community-based Gujarati village structure for empowering communications,Niti Seth
13. Will there always be enough? Self-help groups as a renewable healing resource,Richard Katz and Stephen Murphy-Shigematsu