Anthropological Analysis of 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 appraised for how it handles its sick, the diseased and dying, what is uncovered are the culture's foundational values. The recent surge of interest in alternative healing in the west appears as a direct response to the continued insufficiencies of traditional medicine. Studying how other cultures have categorized and treated their ill provides a framework for understanding how healing functions in an anthropological manner. 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.

In "Dissecting grafts: The anthropology of the medical uses of the human body" David Le Breton asserts that social attitudes toward the medical or scientific use of the deceased body reveals a great deal about the cultural belief of both individuals and groups (Breton, 1994, p. 95). Breton indicates that dissection and transplants reinforce the social distinction between man and body in western medicine (Breton, 1994, p. 97). Here western resistance to organ-donation can be understood as deriving from their cultural identification of personhood with the body's shape and materiality (Breton, 1994, p. 102). Organ dona

. . .
an important method for "understanding the practice of medicine itself and for improving the care which may be given to patients" (Helman, 1991, p. 1083). A cross comparative study of western medicine with alternative medicine highlights the importance of the patient's attitude. Repeatedly, medical studies have reported that patients who have faith in the doctor or healing practice which they are undergoing are more likely to become well than those who do not. In his study of the shamanistic revolution which has exploded since the 1980s, Michael Harner writes in The way of the shaman that new practitioners of alternative medicine should not be seen as "playing Indian" (Harner in Epstein, 1996, p. E1). Instead, Juan Pablo Serrano Nieblas indicates that "a shaman is someone who makes others aware" (Epstein, 1996, p. E1). Many contemporary shamans in western culture rely upon techniques used by their tribal models. Typically, they use "monotonous drumming to enter an altered state of consciousness to acquire knowledge or power or to accomplish specific healing" (Epstein, 1996, p. E3). From this perspective, many contemporary shamans and their patients see themselves as participating within a state or trance which draws upon the
. . .

Some common words found in the essay are:
Inglis West, Dr Lu, Cultural Revolution, Cecil Helman, Sigmund Freud, David Landy, Native American, Marcia Inhorn, Le Breton, Anthropological Analysis, west 1983, inglis west 1983, inglis west, western medicine, kaptchuk 1987, kleinman 1994, landy 1974, helman 1991, alternative medicine, epstein 1996, kleinman 1994 709, yin yang, kaptchuk 1987 28, landy 1974 468, west 1983 6,
Approximate Word count = 4396
Approximate Pages = 18 (250 words per page)

More Essays on Anthropological Analysis of Alternative Healing