David Edward Walker, PhD.

Liberation Psychologist and Heart-Centered Collaborator.

Services

Mutual Accompaniment (Free)

Moving with individuals and communities in solidarity—listening, learning, consulting, and offering support grounded in liberation psychology, Indigenous teachings, and the Bahá’í faith’s teachings of unity and oneness. Always offered at no cost.

Consultation Circles

Talking circles and gatherings for wellness providers who help adults, youth, and families – grounded within the belief that people are not ‘cases.’ Expertise in group process and the power of metaphor. Support for helpers with secondary grief, traumatic stress, needs for better self-care, and increased confidence in responding to complex, difficult clinical work.

Wellness ReVisioning

Alliance, consultation, and facilitation for wellness providers seeking to decolonize, re-vision, strengthen engagement, and restore connection. This work emphasizes creating a safe space for healing and renewal—especially for professionals carrying fatigue, secondary trauma, and grief. Specialized approaches for Native-centered wellness providers seeking to decolonize mental health programming.

Process-Oriented Facilitation

Custom experiential learning built in response to needs to reach far beyond “checking a box.” Inspiring wellness providers to reconnect with meaning and purpose while working through emotional and cognitive barriers toward learning and healing. Become more than “trauma-informed” by learning to deal with burnout, feel your strength again, return to helping others from heart-to-heart.

Individual Virtual Psychotherapy

Part-time, virtual individual psychotherapy for adults, offered alongside David’s consultation and training work. Learn more via his Psychology Today profile.

Coyote’s Swing

Coyote’s Swing demonstrates how the U.S. mental health system has reframed Native responses to oppression and marginalization as “mental disorders,” with Indian Health Service practices echoing a long history of institutional harms. Drawing on two decades of immersion in this system and its history, Walker connects past and present through a traditional Yakama tale motif—showing how Western medical model ideology continues to threaten Native lives and culture.

Listen to Dr. Walker’s interview on the Mad in America podcast

Listen to Dr. Walker’s interview on Native American mental health and the IHS with Anne Zimmerman on the Voices in Bioethics podcast.

Washington State University Press | Paperback | 410 pp | Feb 23, 2023 | $34.95 | EAN/UPC: 9780874224207

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Tessa’s Dance

Tessa Miyanashatawit forms a fragile, healing bond with Dr. Ret Barlow, supported by Auntie Elisi, Grandfather Arnold, and a wild horse (Ámashitum). Danger lurks when “Cowboy” Jack Brie—her mother’s ex-boyfriend and Tessa’s childhood abuser—returns and threatens the family, including Tessa’s baby half-sister, Ce Ce.

Thoughtful Publishing | Paperback | 326 pp | Nov 21, 2012 | $18.95 | EAN/UPC: 9780615725833

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Signal Peak

Cover for David Edward Walker’s book Signal Peak

From a new office in an old veterinarian’s clinic, Dr. Ret Barlow consults with Emily Miyanashatawit about her younger brother Franklin, who’s joined the “True Native Kings” youth gang and stopped coming home. With Tessa preoccupied and family supports strained, the aftermath of last spring’s tragedy leaves a terrible void—then a mysterious driver in a 1954 Chevy BelAir escalates danger into terror.

Thoughtful Publishing | Paperback | 340 pp | Nov 15, 2013 | $18.95 | EAN/UPC: 9780615904702

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Original Songs with Heart, Poetry, and Artistry

David Edward Walker (once known as “David Folks”) is a performing singer-songwriter who toured throughout the U.S. in the late 1990s, performing on college radio and at many esteemed venues, including the legendary Bluebird Cafe in Nashville, and the 25th Annual Kerrville Folk Festival. He continues to release powerful songs from his home studio to add to an established deep catalog of CDs and digital-only releases, all available for streaming and purchase. Thank you for supporting David’s rich and evocative songwriting!

“With a style that encompasses urban and rural images, rich metaphors, spiritual themes, moving ballads, and ambitious fingerstyle guitar work, David is a singer-songwriter with a special ability to reach listeners on an emotional level.”

Where to Listen