Psychiatrists and Traditional Healers || Overview: Looking toward the Future of Shared Knowledge and Healing Practices
✍ Scribed by Incayawar, Mario; Wintrob, Ronald; Bouchard, Lise
- Publisher
- John Wiley & Sons, Ltd
- Year
- 2009
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 125 KB
- Edition
- 1
- Category
- Article
- ISBN
- 0470516836
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
Medicine has made outstanding advances over the past 50 years in understanding the biology of the disease process at the level of organs and cells and genes, leading to a vast array of effective new treatments. But for all its success in these areas, medicine cannot answer the two fundamental questions most people ask about the misfortune of becoming ill: why me, and why now? These are questions that relate to every society's beliefs about cosmology; about how the world works, and why it works the way it does. These are the larger questions about the relationship between man and nature, and man and the supernatural, and the search for harmony in relations between the natural and the supernatural worlds. The chapters in this volume address these large questions, referring to societies around the world.
In this overview chapter, consideration is directed first to issues of man and nature; to past and contemporary beliefs and practices about the healing powers of plants and their derivative biologically active compounds. The focus of this section is on the field now called 'complementary and alternative medicine'.
This subject leads to a consideration of the medical knowledge of indigenous populations around the world; knowledge that includes both medicinal effects of local plants and healing practices developed over many centuries by indigenous peoples. Discussion is included of the intellectual property rights of indigenous peoples to their accrued medical knowledge.
The chapter continues with discussion of the relationship between the natural and the supernatural worlds, specifically concerning beliefs about the causes of illness and its treatment. This involves the central issue of supernatural determinism in illness and its outcome. It involves beliefs and practices about healing of illness through participation in religious rituals. Examples of Christian faith healing rituals are cited, as are examples of Hindu and Muslim religious healing practices.
In the last section of the overview chapter, the focus is directed toward contemporary efforts to integrate aspects of traditional healing beliefs and practices, among indigenous peoples in North and South America, with medical and psychiatric treatment programs. The