Bradford Keeney, Ph.D. has been recognized as an elder shaman and spiritual teacher in cultures throughout the world.
"Bradford Keeney emerges as a fascinating and charismatic healer, one who brings to modern life the powerful wisdom of a traditional shaman . . . Keeney may be the closest we have to a genuine American shaman."
-DANIEL GOLEMAN, author of Emotional Intelligence
Learn more about Dr. Keeney and his works at http://www.shakingmedicine.com/
Bradford Keeney, Ph.D. has been recognized as an elder shaman and spiritual teacher in cultures throughout the world. The grandson and son of country preachers, he was also mentored by anthropologist Gregory Bateson, cybernetic scientist Heinz von Foerster, and experiential psychotherapist Carl Whitaker. His diverse background uniquely qualifies him to capably voice the wisdom of old and new.
Dr. Keeney is equally at ease and accomplished in the profession of psychotherapy. In addition to directing doctoral programs in family therapy, Dr. Keeney has worked at some of the most highly respected psychotherapy institutes, including the Ackerman Institute, the Karl Menninger Center, and the Philadelphia Child Guidance Clinic at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the originator of several orientations to psychotherapy ("improvisational therapy" and "resource focused therapy") and the inventor of a research method that discerns pattern in conversation ("recursive frame analysis"). His therapeutic work, described by Lynn Hoffman as "brilliant and refreshing," is an inspired performance of transformational creativity. Internationally praised as a keynote speaker, he has presented major addresses to audiences throughout the United States, Canada, Mexico, Europe, Africa, Japan, Central and South America, and Australia.
Keeney is the author of several classics in the field of psychotherapy, including Aesthetics of Change (an authoritative work on the cybernetics of therapeutic change), Mind in Therapy, Improvisational Therapy, and more recently a biographical study, Milton H. Erickson, M.D.: An American Healer, co-edited with Betty Alice Erickson. He also has written numerous titles for the popular press, such as Everyday Soul, Shaking Out the Spirits, Bushman Shaman: Awakening the Spirit through Ecstatic Dance, Shamanic Christianity (winner of a Best Spiritual Book of 2006 Award from Spirituality & Health magazine), and Shaking Medicine: The Healing Power of Ecstatic Movement.
Bradford Keeney was at the height of his speaking, teaching, and performing career when, following a riveting performance with jazz guitarist Al Di Meola at the Miami Arena, he made the radical decision to abandon public work in order to devote himself to absorbing and recording the fast-disappearing wisdom and practices of the world's traditional healing cultures. For over a decade, he traveled the globe, dancing, listening, and living with spiritual teachers, shamans, healers, and medicine people who trusted him to share their teachings. He is the subject of the book, American Shaman: An Odyssey of Global Healing Traditions written by psychologists Jeffrey Kottler and Jon Carlson, which won a Best Spiritual Book of 2005 award from Spirituality & Health magazine.
Keeney is the founder of the Life Force Theatre, Shamanic Conversation, and other offerings of Shaking Medicine that form the basis of his experiential performances and teaching. His mission is to help conserve and advance the oldest healing and spiritual practice on earth - the ecstatic ways of shaking medicine.