Ahead of his visit to Australia, to run a series of events with the Australian Indigenous Psychologists Association, Dr Mark Standing Eagle Baez sat down with APS to walk through his culturally grounded, relational framework for mental health practice.
When Dr Mark Standing Eagle Baez sits down with a new client, the first thing he is thinking about has nothing to do with symptoms, diagnoses or treatment plans. It's a single question: what is my intent, and can this person trust it?
That question sits at the heart of the Sweetgrass Method, a culturally grounded, relational framework for mental health practice that Dr Baez has developed over years of clinical work, teaching and community collaboration.
A citizen of the Coahuiltecan Tribe with Mohawk, Pawnee and Mexican heritage, Dr Baez is a psychologist, President of the Society of Indian Psychologists and Associate Professor of Clinical and Counseling Psychology.
As a generalist psychologist, he addresses a broad range of emotional, behavioural and relational issues, weaving Western therapeutic models together with Indigenous practices to create a holistic, culturally attuned approach to care.
Later this month, he arrives in Australia to join the Australian Indigenous Psychologists Association (AIPA) for a series of discussions, centering around his Sweetgrass method, which shares cultural similarities with First Nation's models, such as the Social and Emotional Wellbeing (SEWB) Framework, co-created by Professor Pat Dudgeon AM FAPS, Co-Chair of the APS Indigenous Psychology Taskforce.
Image: Dr Mark Standing Eagle Baez.
Culture is medicine
Dr Baez traces some of his thinking on the development of the Sweetgrass Method back to an idea his wife, also a doctor working with Indigenous communities, shared with him: many clinicians are trained to lead with assessment – working out what's wrong and cataloguing the issues – rather than first understanding what a person has lived through.
He believes this well-intentioned starting point can still overlook something fundamental about how Indigenous people understand wellbeing.
"As Indigenous people, there's a balance," says Dr Baez. "In any relationship, it's imperative to also look at the gifts we have, not saying 'Let's get together and let me tell you all your faults.' I'm not sure who would want to start a relationship that way."
For Dr Baez, this isn't just a philosophical preference. It's also a matter of clinical effectiveness. He points to examples of clients who don't feel truly heard in a psychology session, saying they will simply tell psychologist what they want to hear, which, in turn, makes it harder to form a therapeutic alliance.
"If we can change this narrative, we'll start seeing better outcomes," he says. "This is what we're seeing now. Indigenous researchers are showing that culture is medicine."
Three strands, one braid
The idea of cultural medicine underpins Dr Baez's Sweetgrass Method – a name he chose deliberately.
"Sweetgrass, in Indigenous communities in the States and Canada, is one of the four sacred herbs. We have tobacco, we have sage, we have cedar and we have Sweetgrass, which is used in ceremonies."
Click the image below to watch the video explaining the Sweetgrass method in more detail.
Just as sweetgrass is braided, Dr Baez's method is woven from three strands, each containing multiple threads of its own.
The first strand is introspection.
"This is about looking at inward work," says Dr Baez. "Am I starting off in a good way? What about self-care?"
This strand asks practitioners to examine their own identity, biases, assumptions and limits, while also drawing on the best of Western evidence-based practice and practice-based evidence – "What works best for that specific community" – which formal research often can't capture, because, as he notes, many ceremonies are rightly closed to public documentation and data collection.
The second strand is communication, which Dr Baez breaks down further into consultation and collaboration.
"When in doubt, check it out," he says of the habit of consulting other practitioners, Indigenous or otherwise, rather than assuming expertise one doesn't have.
He recalls being asked to work with a tribe at the bottom of the Grand Canyon simply because he was Native American himself.
"I said: 'I don't know those people.' One of them actually pointed out that, historically, we were enemies. They were saying it in a teasing way, which is a good sign among our people, but it meant I needed to collaborate with other practitioners who worked with that tribe. I needed to collaborate and communicate with their tribal Elders to ask, 'How do I do this for your people that's more meaningful?'"
The encounter taught him that shared Indigenous identity is no substitute for genuine collaboration and community consultation.
The third strand, continuation, is, in his words, "just as important, if not the most important."
It addresses what he calls the "honeymoon phase”, where practitioners perform cultural respect in early sessions before slipping back into old habits.
"The continuation strand centres around sustainability and relational continuity," says Dr Baez. "The cultural intentionality is non-negotiable."
He is also careful to distinguish weaving from blending. Non-Indigenous practitioners sometimes describe the Sweetgrass Method as blending Indigenous and Western approaches.
“When you blend it in, we'll usually use the majority of Western practices, which is about 75 per cent," he says. "And then we may use 15, 20 per cent of Indigeneity and then five per cent other. So it's not blending. It's weaving in, where each strand keeps its own integrity."
Image: Sweetgrass
Dr Baez likens the Sweetgrass Method to a recipe: precise enough to guide practitioners, flexible enough to be tailored to the community in front of them.
With the right ingredients, applied with humility, consultation and sustained commitment, he believes practitioners – Indigenous and non-Indigenous alike – can offer something more than treatment.
Honouring people's spirit
Another element to the method is honouring the person you're working with, he says.
"For a lot of the clients I work with, people might think, 'How do you honour that person? They [come with personal challenges or might have displayed terrible behaviour]."
His answer draws on guidance from Elders.
"You honour their spirit. Their behaviour is what you're working with, but you come to the table to honour who they are and look at ways you can work with them to help change those behaviours. But it won't happen if there's no relationship."
The importance of cultural humility
For non-Indigenous practitioners anxious about "getting it wrong," Dr Baez offers a reframe centred on cultural safety and cultural humility.
Cultural safety, he says, means a client doesn't have to explain or defend their identity, and it means recognising historical trauma "without pathologising the person".
You can't just get a certificate in a certain element of cultural competency, he says. It's a life-long mission to continuously learn and listen, to build on that knowledge.
"It's not just a competency that you achieve. It's a discipline that you practice on a daily basis.”
Part of that ongoing commitment to embedding and understanding Indigenous context, culture and perspectives is demonstrating actionable impact off the back of reconciliation efforts, such as the establishment of Reconciliation Action Plans and formal apologies.
Dr Baez's work has placed him within the international dialogue on institutional apologies to Indigenous communities. He describes the American Psychological Association's apology as building on precedent set by the Australian Psychological Society's formal apology in 2016.
He recalls a conversation with Professor Pat Dudgeon AM, who said to him: "The apology is a starting point. It's not an outcome."
Speaking to the APA apology, he said: "The apology itself was deeply significant in how it came about – representing the acknowledgement of harm to many Indigenous people or communities. for generations."
He says this included things such as testing instruments that were culturally insensitive, misdiagnosis and practices that were unintentionally re-traumatising for Indigenous people.
"There was a true appreciation of the acknowledgement that we were being heard, but it was also heard with caution."
Indigenous communities, in the psychology profession and beyond, need to see genuine action for reconciliation efforts to be advanced, he says.
What comes next, in Dr Baez's view, is embedding Indigenous leadership in research, publishing and decision-making. He captures this in the principle "For us; by us," not "About us; without us."
He wants to see Indigenous scholars reviewing scholarly work before publication, genuine community partnerships rather than token consultation and accountability measures that track whether promises translate into change.
The APS Indigenous Psychology Taskforce has been formed to ensure words are translated into action. Currently, it has two primary objectives:
Commemorate the 10th Anniversary of the APS Apology: Plan and deliver acknowledgement of the 10th Anniversary of the APS Apology to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples.
Review the APS Reconciliation Action Plan: Review and update the current Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP) and to ensure it reflects contemporary practice. This includes alignment with the Psychology Board of Australia’s revised registration competencies and Code of conduct.
Dr Baez is looking forward to connecting with his colleagues from AIPA and other practitioners who are "working with our relatives in a way can best honour our people's experiences" when he visits Australia later this month.
"If we can at least share some of this medicine – this indigeneity – then we all win. We're all helping one another."
AIPA is bringing Dr Baez to Perth and Sydney from 13-17 July for a series of events focused on his Sweetgrass Method. The Sydney program on 17 July includes a two-hour workshop followed by a gala dinner. APS members can attend the gala dinner on Friday 17 July for free, using code AIPAGALA at checkout. For a 50% discount on the workshop, use the promo code AIPA. Learn more and book your tickets here.