Shamans perform energy work, conduct soul crossings, and provide coaching and counseling through focusing on the root of problems. Shamans speak to nature to bring in medicines and ensure the health and wellness of the people. They sing healing songs to invoke connection. They invoke helping spirits to bring back the power loss people have experienced, or bring them back to hope when they sit in helplessness or physical pain for too long. 

Shamans conduct healing ceremonies for individuals, families, and communities. In these ceremonies, shamans enter a trance, journeying into a non-ordinary realm on behalf of their client in order to meet with helping spirits.

These spirits give the shaman guidance about what spiritual  issues are causing the client's illness and how the person's wholeness and power can be restored through  lifestyle changes and spiritual, physical, or energetic practices.

Shamans have a very different mindset about healing than modern Western medical professionals do. Shamans see their clients as whole, animated beings, not broken motionless pieces. They see a complete person.

Shamans recognize that the physical body, working mind, emotions, energetic body, and a spirit that moves within the person all at the same time.

Shamans see all physical, mental, and emotional illnesses as manifestations of spiritual and energetic imbalances. Therefore, spiritual and energetic intervention can have a positive impact on illness.

Shamans practice within the realm of Western Medicine by working an integrative practice with therapists, psychologists, psychiatrists, and professional medical doctors.

A person may see a shaman to discover the root of a physical illness or a mental health concern. The shaman can help the person connect to their spirit guides and see where the root imbalance is within themselves.

The shaman is able to help the person go into the messages and places of illness and extract the toxic energies out of the person that does not serve them.

The healing experience is a cooperative and integrative process with the person or animal. The shaman has a tendency to work with the person's God or Gods, whomever is the higher power they believe in. The shaman's work is never contrary to the higher powers the person is divinely connected with.