Найти книгу: "Psychics, Healers, and Mediums"

We think we know what healers do: they build on patients’ irrational beliefs and treat them in a ‘symbolic’ way. If they get results, it’s thanks to their capacity to listen, rather than any influence on a clinical level. At the same time, we also think we know what modern medicine is: a highly technical and rational process, but one that scarcely listens to patients at all. In this book, ethnopsychiatrist Tobie Nathan and philosopher Isabelle Stengers argue that this commonly posed opposition between traditional and modern medicine is misleading. They show instead that healers are interesting precisely because they don’t listen to patients, using techniques of ‘divination’ rather than ‘diagnosis’. Healers construct genuine therapeutic strategies by identifying the origins of symptoms in external forces, outside of the mind of the sufferer. Modern medicine, for its part, is characterized by empiricism rather than rationality. What appears to be the pursuit of rationality is ultimately only a means to dismiss and exclude other forms of treatment. Blurring the distinctions between traditional and modern practices and drawing on perspectives from across the globe, this ethnopsychiatric manifesto encourages us to think in radically new ways about illness, challenging accepted notions on the relationship between sufferer and symptom.

This exceptional book responds to the intense current interest in defining and understanding the contribution of traditional medical knowledge and the intervention techniques of traditional healers to national mental health services around the world. First book on traditional healing and transcultural psychiatry Delineates the knowledge and clinical skills of traditional healers from diverse cultural areas around the world Describes the clinical and social roles of traditional healers in their communities and the challenges of constructing national mental health programs that include traditional knowledge and healing techniques Assesses issues on efficacy and safety of traditional healers' interventions Includes contributions from leading scholars in this field from South Africa, India, New Zealand, Andorra, Canada, USA, Italy, and the Quichua and Sioux Lakota Nations of South and North America Theme of culture versus science: The psychiatrists discuss the effects of local culture upon mental health and consider the impact, benefit and incorporation of traditional healing as a tool for the clinical psychiatrist. Easy to use with case studies and vignettes throughout and a glossary to explain any technical terms Psychiatrists and Traditional Healers: Unwitting Partners in Global Mental Health is a valuable addition to the bookshelf of a wide array of mental health trainees, researchers and professionals interested in cultural psychiatry in general and the role of traditional healers around the world.