Med Soc Chapter 10

Faith Healing and Religion:Five general categories:

1.Self-treatment through prayer 2.Treatment by a layperson thought to be able to communicate with God 3.Treatment by an official church leader as one of their duties 4.Healing obtained from a person or group who practice healing full time without an affiliation with a major religious organization 5.Healing obtained from religious healers who practice full time and are affiliated with a major religious group

Folk Healing: African American Folk Healers

Belief system does not differentiate between science and religion

Curanderos and curanderas

Mexican American folk healers

Folk Healing

Still used by some low-income and minority populations

osteopaths

osteopaths are part of mainstream medicine, and they work as physicians with the added skill of training in spinal procedures

Faith healers are

people who use the power of suggestion, prayer, and faith in God to promote healing

Religion is associated

with positive levels of health and lower mortality

Navajos

-Traditional rituals may last several days, lead by a singer -Illness is seen as caused by soul loss, witchcraft, spirit possession, or violations of tribal taboos -Emphasis on cause of illness, diseases classified by causes rather than symptoms -Practices declining because fewer men trained as singers, long ceremonies are increasingly difficult to afford

Folk practices

have persisted in modern societies largely because of dissatisfaction with professional medicine and a cultural gap between biomedical practitioners and particular patients

Those who use faith and folk healers typically come from

lower-class background and use these practitioners because they are inexpensive and culturally similar

Persons who use some form of alternative or "new age" medicine tend to have

middle- or working-class social backgrounds

Osteopaths achieved professional respectability by

moving away from an exclusive focus on spinal manipulation techniques to treat general health problems