Response to Question I
Margaret Guenther articulates that “...the work of healing demands that we let ourselves be touched” (2011:654). Suffering is a regrettable aspect of the human condition, which does not just occur within the body but also the mind and the spirit. Healing all these dimensions requires the body, mind and spirit to be ‘touched’ on different levels. These levels can be divided into three distinct dimensions: physical, emotional and spiritual. It could be argued that healing occurs when the individual under distress allows one or all of these levels to be touched and some form of balance is restored. Healing is often misunderstood and confused with the different process of curing. Curing is mainly used by biomedicine to redress an ailment by means of surgical intervention and/or through the use of pharmaceuticals. In this article, I will explain how healing occurs and how its mechanisms are different to the curing process.
Healing occurs when some form of balance is restored to the mind, body and/or spirit, whilst suffering from an illness/disease. The process of healing differs from curing as it particularly focuses on the mind and spirit under distress from the illness/disease (Barbara Miller 2010). Curing
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Ivan Karp (1985) argues that ‘Culture-Bound Syndromes’ are bound in the culture that has the condition and therefore is underpinned by culture. This creates some conceptual issues for ‘Culture-Bound Syndromes’ genesis argued by Hahn (1985). The main intangible problem of Hahn’s (1985) argument is that not all illnesses are biologically based. Rather, they are often manifested psychiatrically under different cultural backgrounds. Whilst some of them may have some physical symptoms, they are mainly culturally established with psychological symptoms. Such examples could include Koro, Peito aberto, and Hikikomori (Mille
As an expat child having gown up and lived across three continents-politely labelled as a third culture kid, but in reality not belonging to any one culture-I doubt if my own parents would understand me let alone a doctor in another country. My mother suffers from trichotillomania and on visiting a psychiatrist in a foreign country, he mentioned not seeing this disease often in his country: he had made her feel at once both alienated and awkward, and not likely to trust his diagnosis or his treatment. I have seen her throwing her medication away- Pharmacotherapy cannot work without psychotherapy-and the demands of psychotherapy seem to be only increasing when you add a complex cultural element to it. Gold and his brother argue that both biological and social factors contribute to psychosis. In the field of psychiatric and behavioural sciences this would call for physicians skilled in appreciating all sorts of cultures and environments and while this may seem a tall order, a first step towards a solution would lie in acknowledging the role and importance of such external stimuli. Doctors cannot know it all but at least when they give a label it will be real. In a field where labels tend to stick and where the social stigma attached to mental illness is still considerable, it is worth while for doctors to make more informed diagnoses. Diagnoses that we can
How do you define healing? In the dictionary it says that to be healed you are cured, resolved, free from worry. But is that what everyone else thinks of healed as. In the novel Ordinary People, written by Judith Guest, Conrad Jarret goes from being a young boy to an adult within a year. He did not know what he was like himself, in the beginning of the story, then there were things that made him grow, and lastly did he heal?
Throughout time, mankind has persistently been seeking ways to maintain their health and to cure those that had not been so fortunate in that task. Just about everything has been experimented with as a cure for some type of illness; whether physical, spiritual or mental. There has always been evidence of spiritual healing and it will continue to be an important part of any healing process, large or small.
Pende Hawter, Ven (1995) Healing: A Tibetan Buddhist Perspective. Retrieved on January 17, 2013 from http://www.buddhanet.net/tib_heal.htm
Ross defines and differentiates between the terms healing and curing. She recognizes the fact that healing and curing are very intertwined and it can be hard to distinguish between the two terms. There are differences between the definitions in scholarly and general settings. She references an ethnographic study of healing versus curing conducted by anthropologists Andrew Strathern and Pamela Stewart in 1999 with native groups in New Guinea. The results of the study looked at how energy used by the different types of tribal healers to either cure or heal a patient. Eastern medicine focuses on how energy interacts with the healing process in connection within the mind. Whereas Western medicine is focused on the mind and the body separately. The practice is considered a holistic approach to finding cures. According to Ross (2013), healing is more a therapeutic process targeting the whole body and specific illness including emotional, mental, and social aspects in the treatment. The act of curing is a pragmatic approach that focuses on removing the problem all together. The life experiences of a person playing into how well certain treatments will heal or cure what is ailing them. These aspects can not be defined with textbook definitions. The interaction that the healing process has with energy is a variable in the success rate. Uncontrolled emotions can have a greater impact on the inside the body than a person can realize. The exploration of energy interaction within the body can be used for greater analysis of health care systems. (21-22). Are Western healthcare facilities purposely “curing” patients just so that they return are few years later? Is Western Medicine built upon a negative feedback loop? The terminolo...
Kleinman, A. 1980. Patients and Healers in the Context of Culture: An Exploration of the Borderland between Anthropology, Medicine, and Psychiatry. University of California Press.
Anderson et al. (2010) viewed the healing setting as shared beliefs between the client and the practitioner about what healing means (p. 148). They state “the setting in which a treatment occurs imbues the process with power and prestige while simultaneously reminding the participants of the predominant cultural beliefs regarding effective care” (p. 148). In this sense, whatever is acceptable treatment within a specific culture is valid so long as patients believe in the treatment. Thus, what happens in...
Culture has a huge influence on how people view and deal with psychological disorders. Being able to successfully treat someone for a mental illness has largely to do with what they view as normal in their own culture. In Western cultures we think that going to a counselor to talk about our emotions or our individual problems and/or getting some type of drug to help with our mental illness is the best way to overcome and treat it, but in other cultures that may not be the case. In particular Western and Asian cultures vary in the way they deal with psychological disorders. In this paper I am going to discuss how Asian cultures and Western cultures are similar and different in the way they view psychological disorders, the treatments and likelihood of getting treatment, culture bound disorders, and how to overcome the differences in the cultures for optimal treatments.
The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures shares the journey of cultural illiteracy from the Hmong and American side. Fadiman states, “In 1995, for the first time, the national guidelines for training psychiatry residents stipulated that they learn to assess cultural influences on their patients’ problems,” (Fadiman 270). Though the unfortunate events that occurred were definitely able to avoid now, at the time, there was no standard set of actions and procedures to take in order to provide the best health care to different cultures. Fadiman truly succeeded in showing the reader that good intentions and compassion must be weighed more heavily when analyzing events and the consequences must be met with an objective eye.
Religion and spirituality is a major essential part of one’s’ health. They have included things such as prayer in healing, counseling, and the use of meditation. Spiritual issues make a difference in an individual’s experience of illness and health. With spirituality, the health care providers can learn to support the values for the art of healing. The health care provider must have respect for their patient’s religion. (Larry Dossey. Healing Words: The Power of Prayer and the Practice of Medicine. Harper Collins, San Francisco. 1993.)
Then again, the hadith additionally pushes other profound elements of the ailment. These capacities may involve purgation, discipline for sins, or positive prizes. In Islamic custom, it is extremely normal to express one 's sensitivity for a sickness by saying "It happened with God 's consent or God 's will. Muslims were among the first on the planet to construct healing facilities to guarantee more viable therapeutic watch over the wiped out. Despite the fact that the Qur 'an does not talk unequivocally about restorative treatment, it does put a high esteem on wellbeing. The Qur 'an accentuates physical also, profound cleanliness and calls itself a cure (Oyewole, Dopamu & University of Ilorin, 2010). Get yourself treated when you are debilitated, for each ailment God has sent a treatment as well. After the execution of essential religious obligations, there is no more prominent administration to God than to mend individuals. For Muslims, this form of treatment was initially uncovered to particular prophets and after that created by human experience and reason. Contemporary Islamic pharmaceutical keeps on stating the Qur 'an 's connection between physical and otherworldly areas (Ellison & Hummer, 2010). In like manner, Muslim patients trust that they are better ready to withstand physical enduring in the event that they have an in number association with God, submit themselves to following to Qur 'anic decrees, and model the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad. These directives likewise apply to ordinary life. Case in point, substantial health is developed using dietary confinements, for example, precautions against pork, liquor, sedates that can conceivably hinder regular working or extreme sexual action. Likewise with the act of solution, are guided by sacred writing and are in this way seen as celestial orders identified with physical
Although we might not all agree on whoever or whatever created the human body, I think we can all agree it is an amazing, self-functioning machine. The ability of the body to maintain a healthy status quo and to heal itself without input is unlike any man made machine in existence. However, with today’s society wanting more and at an ever accelerating rate, the incredible inventions of doctors, engineers and scientists have that work in conjunction with the body to heal is truly amazing. Despite the body’s talent to heal subconsciously, it turns out there is many ways we can affect the process with our current health, both positive and negatively. The human body has programmed ways to recoup and revive damaged cells but in an ever changing world there are many things we can do externally and internally to affect the body’s already amazing process.
Ubiquitously cultural bound syndrome is perceived to be a mental illness that is present in all societies but is also variable among different cultures. What may be definite as a mental illness to one culture may be definite as a customary conduct for another culture; which is why many of these illnesses sound absurd among individuals who are not being impacted by it (Culture Specific Diseases). Many of these culturally bound illnesses can also reflect how the media wants to perceive an individual. With the use of the media, individuals see what is acceptable within the culture, and what is looked down upon. These acceptable views that are being given to individuals does not only make them feel worthy if they attain these idealistic views, but can also cause negative connotations not only for the individual itself but for the extremities they potentially put up with in order to attain these culturally accepted views.
Derived from several ancient healing practices, therapeutic touch is based on the theory of human energy fields - every person has an energy field that surrounds the entire body. During therapeutic touch treatment, practitioners use their hands, without actually touching the person, to re-establish a healthy energy flow. Therapeutic touch seeks to restore balance within the body while also stimulating the patient's own healing response. The practice of therapeutic touch is used worldwide in thousands of hospitals, clinics, and private practices. It is an easily learned, successful complement to other healing programs.
Many of our finest researchers and scientists have explored that question, and while the exact answer still eludes us, the facts seem to bear out that the mind does have the power to assist in both healing, and conversely, bringing on "disease" as well. Two such examples of mind and body healing are hypnotherapy and meditation. There are others such as ionization, which focuses on thinking positive instead of negative.