Board of Directors | Governing Council

Lewis Mehl-Madrona MD

Lewis Mehl-Madrona, MD, graduated from Stanford University School of Medicine and trained in family medicine, psychiatry, and clinical psychology. He completed his residencies at the University of Vermont College of Medicine. He has been on the faculties of several medical schools, most recently as associate clinical professor of family medicine at the University of New England. He has worked with Indigenous communities to explore how to bring their culture and healing traditions into health care. He is interested in what Indigenous cultures and practices can bring to contemporary medicine and psychology.

Lewis is the author of Coyote Medicine, Coyote Healing, and Coyote Wisdom, a trilogy of books on storytelling and traditional healing as it intersects with modernity. He has also written Narrative Medicine, Healing the Mind through the Power of Story: the Promise of Narrative Psychiatry, and his most recent book with Barbara Mainguy, Remapping Your Mind: the Neuroscience of Self-Transformation through Story.

Lewis currently works as a residency faculty and attending physician at Northern Light Acadia Hospital and with the Family Medicine Residency at Eastern Maine Medical Center. He is also Founder, Executive Director, and Board Chair for the Coyote Institute for Studies of Change and Transformation. Lewis produces a podcast called “Howling Coyote”- available on iTunes, Spotify and YouTube.

Lewis has studied traditional healing and healers since his early days and has written about their work and healing process. He aims to bring healing back into mainstream medicine and transform medicine and psychology through Indigenous wisdom coupled with dialogical and narrative traditions. Lewis has written scientific papers in these areas and continues to do research. His current research interests center around resilience in the lifespan.

Barbara Mainguy

Barbara studied psychology and philosophy at the University of Toronto and received her Master's degree in Creative Arts Psychotherapy at Concordia University in Montreal.  Prior to that, she worked as an artist and an artist in residence in the mental health system for a number of years. Barbara received her M.S.W. from the University of Maine and works as a psychotherapist at Cornerstone Behavioral Health in Bangor, Maine.  She is certified in hypnosis and has taught hypnosis for the American Psychiatric Association, the New England Society for Clinical Hypnosis, and other organizations. 

She has worked in primary care settings as a behavioral health clinician and as a psychotherapist.  Her interests include doing psychotherapy with people who have been diagnosed as psychotic, working with people who are having chronic pain, and exploring the interface between art and psychotherapy and healing.  She enjoys group therapy and group medical visits.  She is the author of a number of papers on health care with aboriginal people and on psychotherapy and psychosis and on chronic pain.  She has written a book with Lewis Mehl-Madrona, entitled Remapping Your Mind: the Neuroscience of Self-Transformation through Story.  Currently, she has almost completed her M.F.A. in documentary film making through York University, Toronto.  She is the Director of Education for the Coyote Institute in Orono and has a part-time private practice with Dr. Mehl-Madrona in Orono, Maine.

Magili Chapman-Quinn, DO

Magili Chapman Quinn, DO, a graduate of Stanford University 1993, completed her Osteopathic medical education in 2003. She graduated from Kansas City University of Medicine and Biosciences and was a recipient of the National Health Service Corps Scholarship for three years. She was also the recipient of the Henry Holloway award, voted most committed to the principles of Osteopathic Medicine. Dr. Quinn first encountered Dr. Mehl-Madrona’s work in 2005 during difficulties completing her family medicine residency. After reading Coyote Medicine and attending a healing intensive with Dr. Mehl-Madrona in Saskatchewan, Canada, she completed residency. Her experience during the intensive with Lewis sparked her commitment to studying indigenous history, healing and culture and championing its profound importance to present day culture.

She has worked in both public and private healthcare, most recently offering Osteopathic Manual Medicine at Greater Portland Health (GPH) in Portland, ME. Her patient population at GPH was largely chronic pain survivors. Many were refugees and asylum seekers from Eastern/Central Africa and Iraq. This work called on her to pursue a deeper understanding of the neurobiology of trauma and pain. She is a lifelong mover, dancer and yoga practitioner, completing her 200hr yoga teacher training in April 2018. She studied Trauma Center Trauma Sensitive Yoga in the Fall of 2017 with David Emerson and Jenn Turner at Kripalu, MA. Dr. Quinn is passionate and activist about embodied healing, cultural restoration and reparations to BIPOC.

Venetia Young, MD

Venetia Young was a Family Doctor and family therapist working in Cumbria England Uk. She is now involved in her local community devising podcasts and training on Narrative approaches to recovery. She has written on a variety of topics: depression, autism, medically unexplained symptoms, stress in schools, dementia and resilient organisations. Her main writing has been a book called ‘10 minutes for the family’ published by Routledge in 2004. Lewis and she wrote a paper on stress in primary care in 2018

Sharon Evans

Sharon Evans was born in Philadelphia. She left the States in 1977 with a one way ticket, a small backpack and her guitar. Wanderlust carried her all over Great. Britain in a 3 1/2 ton truck, traveling through the Nepalese Himalayan heights on an old motorcycle held together with paperclips and faith, and a singing contract in the Yak and Yeti hôtel in Katmandu. In 1983, she became a permanent resident of France. After 40 years as a professional singer, song-writer and musician, Sharon felt compelled to explore new directions and became a story-teller. When she read Lewis Mehl-Madrona’s books on narrative medicine she completely changed the direction of her life. Sharon left Paris , bought and restored an old barn in the French country-side and created a space for workshops where the French could discover Native American and other indigenous teachings. Since 2015 Barbara Mainguy and Lewis Mehl-Madrona do yearly Coyote workshops and sweat lodges. A French Coyote group was created 5 years ago and remains active.

Peter Blum

Peter Blum, C.Ht., C.I., M.S.C. has had a practice in neo-Ericksonian hypnosis and shamanic sound healing. As a Certified Instructor for the National Guild of Hypnotists since 1993 he has trained and certified hundreds in the spiritual art of hypnosis. In 2004, Peter was named Certified Instructor of the Year by the Guild, and in 2009 inducted into the Order of Braid - a lifetime achievement recognition. In 2015 he was recognized as Hypnotist of the Year by IACT (The Int’l Assoc. of Counselors and Therapists), and in 2018 Peter was awarded “Life Fellow in Hypnotherapy” by the International Medical and Dental Hypnosis Association.

After completing extensive study of the world’s major spiritual traditions, Peter was ordained as an Interfaith Minister in the seminary program of the Foundation for the Living Earth. He is a popular lecturer, trainer, and seminar leader for the a number of professional hypnosis organizations, as well as offering programs for schools, prisons, hospitals, mental health and substance abuse counselors, and personal growth programs. Peter has also been involved in the study and practice of sound healing since the mid 1970′s and since 1999 he has released 8 CD’s in the Sounds for Healing series, mostly featuring the extraordinary sounds of the Himalayan Singing Bowls, either played solo or in concert with other trance inducing instruments.

A student of trans-cultural shamanism, Peter was fortunate to have training from Native American mystic and visionary Beautiful Painted Arrow for over 25 years. He has co-facilitated hypnosis and storytelling workshops with Dr. Lewis Mehl-Madrona and Barbara Mainguy.

Josie Conte

Josie Conte, D.O.  is a graduate of University of New England College of Osteopathic Medicine, 2011 and works as an Osteopathic Family doctor and faculty at Maine Dartmouth Family Medicine and their Osteopathic Neuromusculoskeletal Medicine program in Augusta, Maine. She founded a free clinic at New Beginnings in Lewiston, Maine which serves unhoused and at-risk youth. Josie has been exploring and practicing bodywork since 1984 and graduated from the Swedish Institute of Massage in N.Y.C. She has been a lifelong student of world traditions to include Shiatsu and Japanese acupuncture, Ayurveda, Yoga, and Cherokee bodywork. She first began studying with Dr Mehl-Madrona in 2008 and continues to do so. Prior to medical school she was immersed in the world of birth as an educator doula and bodyworker serving birth givers and their families through the childbearing year. Her first passion is dance and she guides movement to explore the Divine feminine in breath- based, meditative belly dance and served as artistic director for Baraka! Middle Eastern Dance Ensemble. Her medicine is informed by movement, flow and following the inherent health. She is honored to be a part of the Coyote Institute. She lives on Maranacook Lake and is becoming acquainted with the animal and plant life there.