The traditional healer and psychiatry.

Summary

Psychiatric treatment for rural Africans is more successful when it incorporates traditional beliefs that illness has magical, social, physical, and religious dimensions. Traditional healers distinguish between natural illnesses, such as epilepsy, genetic disorders, mental retardation, and schizophrenia, and cultural disorders involving sorcery, spirit possession, and ancestral worship. These cultural disorders often challenge Western psychiatrists. Healers, in altered consciousness, use divination to determine the cause and source of misfortune. Consulting reputable traditional healers for therapy-resistant culture-bound syndromes yielded a high success rate, suggesting they deserve greater recognition.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Successful psychiatric treatment for rural Africans should incorporate their traditional belief that illness should be viewed in terms of magical, social, physical and religious parameters. Traditional healers divide illness into those of natural causation and those of traditional cultural aetiology which are peculiar to African people. Natural illness includes epilepsy, familial/genetic disorders, mental retardation and schizophrenia. Traditional, cultural disorders often cause difficulties for Western-trained psychiatrists because sorcery, spirit possession and ancestral worship are central to their aetiology and treatment as practised by traditional healers. They, in a state of altered consciousness, use a process of divination to determine why and from whom the misfortune originated. With this in mind, reputable traditional healers were consulted in therapy-resistant cases of culture-bound syndromes in Africans. Their high rate of success in treating these cases was notable. More recognition should be given to the reputable traditional healers.