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This is a unique presentation of systems of traditional healing from around the world. It provides information about the concept of healing from many different cultural perspectives and explores the application of these cultural perspectives to modern psychotherapeutic and health care settings. The last decade has seen a literal explosion of data that support the idea that states of mind have consistent and demonstrable effects on physical health. With examples that examine traditional and modern healing systems in many different cultures around the world, this work demonstrates that most cultures perceive illness as a dislocation of the individual from his or her communal context. The healing process is effected through contextualizing the individual in community by ritual, ceremony, trance, pilgrimage, and family practices. Traditional healing systems are shown to have particular importance relating to modern medical responses to mental illness.
List of contents
Foreword by Albert Pepitone
Foreword by Uwe P. Gielen
Introduction by Leonore Loeb Adler and B. Runi Mukherji
Concepts of HealingFrom Hippocrates to Psychoneuroimmunology: Medicine as Art and Science by Helmut E. Adler and Leonore Loeb Adler
Cultural Perceptions of Life and Death by John Beatty
Unspoken Assumptions in Communicating about Inner States: Chinese External versus Internal by Edward H. Bendix
Healers and Their Methods from Around the Globe; The Traditional Healer in a Multicultural Society: The South African Experience by Dap A. Louw and Engela Pretorius
Oracles in Ladakh: A Personal Experience by Elan Golomb
Traditional Healing in India by Nihar Ranjan Mrinal, Uma Singhal Mrinal, and B. Runi Mukherji
A Study of Curative Options Available in the Southern Province of Sri Lanka by Suneetha S. de Silva and Willie J. Epps
Mesa Blanca: A Puerto Rican Healing Tradition by Angela Jorge
The Healing Practices of Mexican Spiritualism by Regina Spires-Robin and Peggy McGarrahan
Shamanism in Alaska by Margaret Fischer
Treatment and TrainingEndorsing Irrational Beliefs Cross-Culturally: Clinical Implications by Mitchell W. Robin and Raymond DiGiuseppe
Religion versus Medicine versus Clinical Psychoanalysis or "Spirit" versus "Scalpel" versus "Castration" in a Case of Recovering Alcoholism by C. Edward Robins
The Role of the Referral Agent in Treatment Selection and Treatment Efficacy: A Cultural Perspective by Charles V. Callahan
Cultural and Psychological Influences on Mental Health Issues for Chinese Americans by Diana Chen
Culture and Health Care: A Review of the Literature and Suggestions for Curriculum Development and Implementation by Lisa Whitten
Index
About the Contributors
About the author
LEONORE LOEB ADLER is Director of the Institute for Cross-Cultural & Cross-Ethnic Studies at Molloy College in New York.
UWE P. GIELEN is Professor of Psychology at St. Francis College in New York.
