Women as healers, women as patients: mental health care and traditional healing in Puerto Rico

1993 ◽  
Vol 30 (09) ◽  
pp. 30-5041-30-5041
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Health Care ◽  
Puerto Rico ◽  
Mental Health Care ◽  
Traditional Healing

scholarly journals Efficiency and Outcome of Healing Practices Performed by Spirit Dancers in Healing Mental Illness – A Patient’s Perspective

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (11) ◽  
pp. 803-808
Author(s):  
Prakasha Amin ◽  
Mohan A.K
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Health Care ◽  
Mental Illness ◽  
Mental Health Care ◽  
Mental Health Professionals ◽  
Mental Health Problems ◽  
Health Problems ◽  
Traditional Healers ◽  
Traditional Healing ◽  
Black Magic

BACKGROUND In many rural communities, the cause of mental illness is attributed to black magic, spirit possession of past sin and the coastal region of Karnataka is not exempted from it. The natives of this region ascribe the cause of mental illness to the spirit or demigod, and they seek the help of traditional healers such as spirit dancers for the recovery. This help-seeking behaviour of the people results in delay in seeking psychiatry care and affects the recovery of the person with mental health problems. Therefore, this study explores the opinion of clients undergone traditional healing for mental health problems and the results of the study could contribute to planning an appropriate health promotion activity to promote community mental health. METHODS The present study was explorative, undertaken in the Udupi district of Karnataka state, which explores the views of the respondents about the cause of mental health problem and the outcome of traditional healing for their problems. Altogether 200 clients visiting traditional healers for mental health care were interviewed based on the snowball sampling technique and the interview schedule was used as a tool to gather the data. RESULTS Of the 200 respondents interviewed, 27.5 percent were adults (31 to 40 years), while 43.1 percent were unemployed. Black magic was found to be the major cause for mental health problems among 25.5 percent of the respondents; whereas, 26 percent of the respondents felt recovered completely after undergoing traditional healing for mental health problems. CONCLUSIONS The recognition of mental health problems is very much essential for people with mental health problems to seek professional help. This could help mental health professionals to diagnose illness at the very beginning and provide better mental health care. However, the explanatory model of the patients needs to be taken into consideration while providing modern medical care. KEY WORDS Black Magic, Mental Illness, Serpent Worship, Spirt Dancer, Traditional Healers

scholarly journals Nigerian cultural beliefs about mental health conditions and traditional healing: a qualitative study

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dung Ezekiel Jidong ◽  
Di Bailey ◽  
Tholene Sodi ◽  
Linda Gibson ◽  
Natéwindé Sawadogo ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Health Care ◽  
Mental Health Care ◽  
Cultural Beliefs ◽  
Traditional Healing ◽  
Health Conditions ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Mental Health Systems ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Mental Health Conditions

Purpose This study aims to explore how cultural beliefs and traditions are integral to understanding indigenous mental health conditions (MHCs) and traditional healing (TH). However, Nigerian cultural beliefs about MHCs and TH are under-researched. Design/methodology/approach This study adopted a qualitative design using critical realist and social constructionist perspectives to explore Nigerian mental health-care practitioners (MHCPs) and lay participants’ (LPs) views regarding MHCs and TH. Purposive and snowball sampling techniques were used to select 53 participants (MHCPs = 26; LPs = 27; male = 32; female = 21) in four Nigerian cities (Ado-Ekiti, Enugu, Jos and Zaria). Data were collected using semi-structured interviews and analysed through thematic analyses. Findings The data sets revealed three overarching themes, namely, existing cultural beliefs about MHCs as spiritual curse; description of TH as the first treatment modality for MHCs; and perceived stigma associated with MHCs and help-seeking behaviours. Originality/value A study on Nigerian cultural beliefs and TH contributes meaningfully to mental health systems. Future research and policy initiatives could explore ways of optimising TH practices and community awareness programmes to increase access to mental health care in Nigeria.

Traditional Anishinabe Healing in a Clinical Setting: The Development of an Aboriginal Interdisciplinary Approach to Community-based Aboriginal Mental Health Care

2013 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 18
Author(s):  
Marion A. Maar ◽  
Marjory Shawande
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Health Care ◽  
Health Services ◽  
Mental Health Care ◽  
Professional Education ◽  
Service Providers ◽  
Aboriginal People ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Traditional Healing ◽  
The Impact

Traditional medicine has been practiced by Aboriginal people for thousands of years at the community level. It is still practiced today outside of the mainstream health system by many Aboriginal people. However, providing this type of care in a clinical, health centre setting and in co-operation with western treatment methods is new, and requires a merging of traditional Aboriginal and western medical world views in order to develop protocols for service delivery that ensure the integrity of both systems. The groundwork required to ensure the safety of clients, providers, and organizations within the new integrated system is still largely undocumented. To address this gap, we studied factors that support the successful integration of traditional Aboriginal healing and western mental health care approaches, and document the experiences of clients and providers. To accomplish this we contextualize 10 years of experience of traditional healing services development with in-depth interviews and focus groups with 17 community service providers and 23 clients. We found that the development of traditional healing protocols, inter-professional education for providers and community members and a focus on client access to traditional Anishinabe health services provide the basis for the integration of western and traditional healing practices in the model under study. Our findings show integrated care resulted in positive experiences for clients and providers. We conclude that traditional healing approaches can be successfully integrated with clinical mental health services. Further research is necessary to improve our understanding of client experiences with this integrated  approach and the impact on wholistic health and well-being.

Ayurvedic Psychiatry and the Moral Physiology of Depression in Kerala

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claudia Lang
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Health Care ◽  
Mental Health Care ◽  
Traditional Medicine ◽  
Traditional Healing ◽  
Treatment Gap ◽  
Dynamic Field ◽  
Invented Tradition ◽  
Psychological Knowledge

The GMH movement has not considered psychiatric traditions outside mainstream psychiatry. By highlighting the existence and significance of Ayurvedic mental health care, I challenge the notion of a “treatment gap” in India. At the same time, focusing on Ayurvedic psychiatry as an alternative to globalised biomedical psychiatry and highly dynamic field, I go beyond the usual dichotomy of global psychiatry and local traditional healing by showing how a (re)invented tradition assembles local bio-moral embodied minds, classic texts, vernacular practices, and globalised psychiatric and psychological knowledge to recognise and treat distressed, embodied minds. Against the narrative of traditional medicine as the epistemic “other” to Western psychiatry, I will describe how Ayurvedic psychiatrists engage elements of globalised psychiatry and psychology while stressing Ayurveda’s epistemic difference and embodied alterities.

scholarly journals Changes in Access to Mental Health Care Among the Poor and Nonpoor: Results From the Health Care Reform in Puerto Rico

2001 ◽  
Vol 91 (9) ◽  
pp. 1431-1434 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margarita Alegría ◽  
Thomas McGuire ◽  
Mildred Vera ◽  
Glorisa Canino ◽  
Leida Matías ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Health Care ◽  
Puerto Rico ◽  
Mental Health Care ◽  
Health Care Reform ◽  
The Poor

A Tribute to the Late William J. Curran

1996 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 274-275
Author(s):  
O. Lawrence ◽  
J.D. Gostin
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Health Care ◽  
Mental Illness ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Mental Health Care ◽  
Harvard University ◽  
Legal Medicine ◽  
General Assembly ◽  
International Institute ◽  
University Professor

In the summer of 1979, a group of experts on law, medicine, and ethics assembled in Siracusa, Sicily, under the auspices of the International Commission of Jurists and the International Institute of Higher Studies in Criminal Science, to draft guidelines on the rights of persons with mental illness. Sitting across the table from me was a quiet, proud man of distinctive intelligence, William J. Curran, Frances Glessner Lee Professor of Legal Medicine at Harvard University. Professor Curran was one of the principal drafters of those guidelines. Many years later in 1991, after several subsequent re-drafts by United Nations (U.N.) Rapporteur Erica-Irene Daes, the text was adopted by the U.N. General Assembly as the Principles for the Protection of Persons with Mental Illness and for the Improvement of Mental Health Care. This was the kind of remarkable achievement in the field of law and medicine that Professor Curran repeated throughout his distinguished career.

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