Although talk therapy has tended to rely on exogenous or outside the person resources, many primal alternatives to talk therapy have emphasized the importance of endogenous or inside the person sources of empowerment. The Toba Batak of North Sumatra provide an internalized means of mediating mental health through a religious‐based notion of the tondi, or source of power, inside the person as the source of mental‐physical health and illness. The rituals necessary for maintaining health are discussed with the rationale supporting those rituals. Applications of these historical beliefs among contemporary university students are also discus