To me shamanism, while as important and deep-seated as religious traditions might be to a Catholic, is more like a way of life. A life in which the ultimate goal is to achieve a balance within yourself and those around you, to provide a stable friendly face that can help heal, in a way much more akin to a psychiatrist/psychotherapist than to a traditional GP, with a deep focus on keeping the mind of the person you're helping able to adapt to areas where it struggles - ultimately to improve and solve issues.
The difference comes in the types of practice of each shaman, one may simply be a fraudster, one may be a licensed psychotherapist who laughs at the word "shaman", one may heal through dance and massage therapy, another through psychedelic therapy - and those who engage in the latter tend to find their previous spiritual beliefs challenged and replaced with a new unified "universal consciousness" world-view, where all is alive and beautiful, which tends to lock them into their passion for their goal to continue healing others.
Unfortunately it's often taken in an opposite manner, where folks place a bunch of arbitrary belief systems, often found in rather tacky "new-age mystic" books by authors who've simply fantasized a little too much about being their own God - then take those beliefs with them and integrate them into shamanism, resulting in something that involves way too much ritual with not enough thought, action, and actual healing work behind it. Plus these end up being the people who'll just leave their subject with a hefty dose of Ayahuasca and hope it does the job for them, not realising they have to be capable of healing with and without it, and that they're the key part.
This has created somewhat of a rift in Shamanism, and I feel the majority of the time the term is even brought up, that which it is in reference to is merely ritualistic fantasy, religious cultism, ways to earn a quick buck, or all sorts of other things that go against the very core of its nature. When the real Shaman is but a kind soul and a specific type of healer with a title that they should probably avoid mentioning at dinner parties
