Alternative Healing

To understand the cultural context of an illness is to be better prepared to treat it. Anthropological approaches to healing highlight what various cultures both prize and abhor. When a culture is analyzed for how it handles its sick, the diseased and dying, what is uncovered are the culture's foundational values. What this comparative analysis of healing situated in diverse cultures will highlight is that

individuals are most likely to regain their health according to culturally sanctioned norms.

Alternative medicine is a more viable position in the eyes of many patients precisely because traditional medicine is failing to provide treatment, hope, or a consistent point of view. In some cases, turning to alternative medicine may be seen as an act of desperation, while in others it might be considered a reasonable form of experimentation with a proven method of treatment. It necessarily entails a certain cultural challenge as well in that cultural norms prevalent in the West are often quite different from the cultural norms of the regions where the alternative methods derive. Even as recently as 30 years ago western medicine could claim it was winning the war against disease. As diagnostic techniques advanced, the great epidemics seemed to vanish (Inglis & West, 1983, 6). While drugs were largely responsible for the halting of epidemics, this should not have served as the foundational basis of western medicin

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y and the symbolic order, agency and social control, experience and representation" (Kleinman & Kleinman, 1994, 709). This split creates a division between the disciplines of "anthropology, sociology, social history and political science" on the one side and "psychology, psychiatry, neurosciences and biomedicine" on the other (Kleinman & Kleinman, 1994, 709). This anthropological analysis of disease comparing western medicine with alternative medicine seeks to work within this as-of-yet not fully explored "space between" (Kleinman & Kleinman, 1994, 709). Focusing on how illness is treated by healers illustrates how culture influences both its definition and treatment. Landy (1974) insists that it is important to conceptualize the role of the healer (Landy, 1974, 468). Landy offers a typology of the curer's role as "adaptive", "attenuated" or "emergent" (Landy, 1974, 468). He indicates that this typology is formed in association with such concepts as cultural broker, role analogue and role ambiguity (Landy, 1974, 468). Landy concludes that the role of a curer within a given society is essentially conservative one which in order to be sustained must adapt to changing cultural needs. Landy's interest is in tracing how "the cu
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Some common words found in the essay are:
Inglis West, Kleinman Kleinman, Zande Wimbum, Navajo Southwestern, Dr Lu, Quito Ecuador, Anthropological Analysis, Cultural Revolution, E3 LaPatra, Serrano Nieblas, west 1983, inglis west 1983, inglis west, western medicine, kaptchuk 1987, kleinman 1994, landy 1974, alternative medicine, kleinman kleinman 1994, kleinman kleinman, helman 1991, epstein 1996, kleinman 1994 709, landy 1974 468, kaptchuk 1987 28,
Approximate Word count = 4481
Approximate Pages = 18 (250 words per page)

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