The Ethnomedical Approach
The ethnomedical approach emphasizes on identifying illnesses, treating, and understanding them within a specific culture. We observe different healing practices and systems, for example, the practices of Shaman’s that focus on healing the mind and soul in addition to healing the body. It is important to take into account a patient’s culture because we must understand what their belief system is. How does this patient’s culture define this disease? Who do they believe in as healers? What type of treatment will be affective considering these factors? These are all very imperative questions when using this approach to identify and treat drug addiction.
Culture can be defined as a combination of local beliefs and practices, which create a cohesive and unified approach to overall life. The general understanding of a unified belief system rooted in familial, societal, community and personal stimuli create what we understand as culture. So people from different cultures view illnesses in different manners. What might be considered an illness in one culture might not necessarily be considered an illness in another. Additionally, one culture might treat a certain illness in one way, whereas another culture might treat an illness in a completely different manner.
Culture can be defined as a combination of local beliefs and practices, which create a cohesive and unified approach to overall life. The general understanding of a unified belief system rooted in familial, societal, community and personal stimuli create what we understand as culture. So people from different cultures view illnesses in different manners. What might be considered an illness in one culture might not necessarily be considered an illness in another. Additionally, one culture might treat a certain illness in one way, whereas another culture might treat an illness in a completely different manner.
Explanatory Model of Health
Arthur Kleinman, a medical anthropologist, created an Explanatory Model of Health that has three sectors. The image to the right shows a diagram of this model. These sectors include popular, folk, and professional. This helps us understand how people view their conditions as well as how they seek treatment. The popular sector is when the patient first recognizes their illness. From there, they consult in friends and family instead of turning to a medical professional. In the case of drug addiction, a person suffering with this illness might try to seek advice from their peers, or maybe try involving themselves in a support group like alcoholics anonymous or narcotics anonymous. In the second sector, folk, the patient seeks alternative forms of treatment like sacred and secular healers. A person struggling with drug addiction may turn to a Shaman to “cleanse” their soul, or they might participate in a form of meditation or yoga to cleanse their bodies of the toxins harming them, for example in the image above, the Shaman is in a spiral vortex (PRWeb). The last sector is the professional sector which involves biomedicine. This involves medical doctors who use their medical knowledge to treat the patients. A patient with drug addiction can seek medical guidance from a professional who in turn can prescribe medication to assist in treating the illness. Although these are separate sectors, they coincide and are there to provide effective treatment to patients of different cultures and beliefs.
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The Three Bodies
Drug addiction can be studied by medical anthropologists using the "Three Bodies" approach which was introduced by Nancy Sheper-Hughes and Margaret Lock. The “three bodies” consist of the individual body, the social body, and the body politic. Drug addiction can be viewed through the lens of the individual body by the damage that it causes as a whole. Drug seeking behavior is both a mental and physical act. The body and the mind, in most addiction scenarios, require satiation. The drug is fulfilling a mental need in that it provides escape or relief from anguish and pain. The drug also fulfills a physical need in that it calms withdrawal or physical dependency. In regards to the social body, drug addiction is viewed in a number of different ways. Western medicine views addiction simultaneously as a physical and mental dependency. The body can be medically treated with other medications such as methadone to remove physical dependency to heroin. The mind must also be treated since the mind craves and initiates the desire to seek a release or substance fulfillment. The social mind approach is unique when it comes to drug addiction because in most cases the body is viewed as a broken mechanism in need of repair, which includes the brain. The body is also viewed as a temple in drug addiction. The mental state of a sufferer needs to be remedied through thought overhaul. Therapy can train the mind to cease physical addiction and repair the body through thought control. Lastly in the politic approach, drug addicts are often separated from normal society until recovered. For example, as we can see in the picture to the right, rehabilitation centers are great tools to assist in the recovery process (Right Step). The stresses, which brought an individual to addiction, are removed and an environment, which caters to their needs, is created in order to repair the damage done to them by addiction. It also allows society to be cut off from those seeking drugs and may cause damage to others in order to get what they need.
"Sedona Shaman and Healer, Anahata of Shamangelic Healing is Now Offering Shamanic Sessions For Deep Emotional Release and Trauma Healing." PRWeb. Accessed June 6, 2015. http://www.prweb.com/releases/ShamangelicHealing/ShamanicServices/prweb12525161.htm "Drug and Alcohol Addiction Treatment in Texas". Right Step. Accessed June 6, 2015. http://www.rightstep.com. |