“In the Indian Health Service, dissension is often suppressed as blasphemy and whistleblowers are rarely tolerated. Author David Walker is to be commended for his thorough research and timely recommendations for reform of the agency’s delivery of mental health services in Indian County. In Native humor, exposing another’s disguised beliefs or hypocrisy is called ‘pulling off their blanket’. . . I join him in praying that this period of tribal history comes to an end.”

“The U.S. mental health system has failed many individuals, and David Walker paints a vivid picture of how it has dramatically failed Native peoples. Coyote’s Swing provides a comprehensive account of how Native Americans, first assaulted by the U.S. government, continue to be re-traumatized by a U.S. mental health profession that has exacerbated rather than reduced violence, suicide, and substance abuse. Original and compelling, Coyote’s Swing is Walker’s personal and professional odyssey to becoming a dissident psychologist.”

“This is a story that must be told. The hidden history of the use of psychiatric theories and practices to further abuse, oppress and alienate Native Americans has been vividly brought to life by David Walker through his account of working alongside them. Just as importantly, he shows how ancient wisdoms can help us heal from much that is wrong in our Westernized worlds. This vivid, personal and very moving account has much to teach us all.”

“To medicalize human suffering through psychiatric language is to strip it of political and historical meaning, and nowhere is this more evident, as Coyote’s Swing reveals, than in Native America. David Edward Walker’s book is at once a humble, heartfelt personal tale and a rigorously researched, incisively academic critique of the consequences of the “mental-health-ization” of Indigenous people in the United States. While Coyote’s Swing carefully catalogues the harms that have been done, it is also a clarion call of hope urging all of us to reclaim our emotional pain from psychiatry’s atomizing, reductionist worldview.“

“Walker’s book transcends borders. It is destined to become a valuable and critical treatise for an international Indigenous audience.“

“A great piece of work… I can’t emphasize that enough. As a community how do we begin to dialogue with each other and encourage our people to speak up, especially given the power imbalance between ‘professionals’ and ‘clients’ as to who knows what is best? I firmly believe that systems need to continuously be questioned. Incorporating your personal experiences of adversity and willingness to acclimate into our community was greatly appreciated and provided a better understanding of how you came to question the U.S. mental health system. I hope that you are able to continue adding significant lessons to the time ball of your life as you continue to walk beside us to fight for our survival.“

“A wonderful book, and an important one, that intertwines past and present in a way that tells of the ongoing oppression and abuse of Indigenous society (and, of course, really qualifies as genocide of a people). Well done and nicely written…“

“An engaging and highly informative read that expertly weaves a much-needed counterpoint to the prevailing narratives of the mental health profession. Dave Walker guides the reader along a path that few have traveled, bringing his story to life with the unheard voices and stories of those marginalized by the mental health system. Within this story is another, that of Dave Walker’s own path from an angry youth rebelling in pain and anger and addiction, to a respected mental health professional who feels a duty to expose the failings of the system he has devoted his adult life to. His ability to take complex source material and create from it an engaging story that captures a reality of contemporary indigenous mental health is exceptional. He has clearly worked to honor those about whom he writes, and does so with grace, dignity and understanding. Whilst this book recounts a past of marginalization and oppression of a Native people, it is also a story of survivorship, resilience, and, at the end, a humble and heartfelt hope.“

“Walker knows that the end of overt genocide is not the end of a perpetrating society’s ongoing violence against a people. Societal institutions, like psychiatry and psychology, conserve much of the pejorative labeling, disempowerment, and self-serving historical amnesia that paved the way for genocide. Psychology and psychiatry have a long and shameful history of collusion with colonialism and neo-colonialism. Rather than help a society understand and cease its genocidal thinking and action, many mental health practitioners erase the historical and present-day context of oppression by medicalizing the after-effects of violence. Cultural traumas are turned into individualized psychiatric diagnoses, which are presumed to call for psychopharmacological intervention rather than societal transformation and accountability. This beautifully written and researched book enables readers to understand and witness this tragic state of affairs, while pointing to the social and theoretical transformations that are sorely overdue.“