HLTA02H3 Chapter Notes - Chapter 5: Schizophrenia, Ayurveda, Homeopathy
CHAPTER 5: SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY AND HEALTH
WARWICK ET AL.
Culture and Treatment
•Culture affects our descriptions of health and illness, our attitudes and so too ur health-
seeking behaviour and treatments that we use#
•How people understand their health in cultural context also affects the choices they make
and how they behave as a result#
•MA investigates the use of both medical and alternative treatments and why these are used
in a number of different contexts#
•Modern medicine is increasingly being used alongside alternative treatments and
approaches such as homeopathy, acupuncture and Chinese herbalism—these non-
traditional healing approaches have been aggressively marketed as part of the broader trend
of the commercialization of treatments#
•Health professionals are increasingly becoming more open to at least acknowledge if not
working with traditional healers i.e. using acupuncture has become a part of dominant
medical systems in the west ( these mingling mostly occur in multicultural societies but do
vary according to social class, gender, age and religious beliefs)#
•These changing practices of both health-seeking behaviour and treatment fit with
evolving cultural understandings of health and illness#
•Some societies have dominance in traditional healing (indigenous people) vs western
countries (biomedical) which is all influenced by our cultures #
•Therefore, cultural context remains crucial in determining our attitudes to treatment and
health seeking behaviours #
•“health worlds” exist in which health is understood in terms of its social and religious context#
•Individual health worlds reflect and demonstrate the common cultural understandings and
constructions of health and illness of the society in which they are located #
•Way in which illness is treated ultimately depends upon how it is culturally understood, with
many different explanations for the cause of illness across cultures#
•Illness in some cultures is believed to be caused by external forces, evil spirits and
possessions rather than biological causes#
•Therefore, treatment is ritual based, can involve ceremonies to drive away spirits,
witchcraft, voodoo and the use of Shamans and traditional healers#
•Such externalizing systems of treatment tend to locate both solutions and causes external
to the person and instead see them within the interpersonal, social or spiritual realm#
•Consequently treatment involves rituals based within families and the whole community#
•VS Western medicine works within the biomedical model, and is often criticized for being
too limited and not considering personal, psychological, spiritual and social factors in
illness causation bc it tends to be very individualistic in its treatment approach#
•Seeking treatment from professional is not the first step in many cultures, as individuals
often self medicate prior to this (also varies according to cultures)#
•i.e. korean men self medicate bc they wish to remain independent from medical
intervention in controlling their health problems #
•Self medication involves: socio-cultural, political and economic dimensions#
•Ayurvedic approaches to health are seen as complimentary to western medical practices #
Cultural Representations
•Some diseases, especially those that are difficult to treat, explain and control, become
symbols for more general anxieties that people have—ppl often become stigmatized #
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