Eastern medicine relates its cause to an imbalance between yin (negative force) and yang (positive force) or between ki (vital energy) and hwa (illness with properties of fire). Increase Equity. assume emotional illness. In order to understand the anthropological approach to health and illness, it is necessary to know the definitions of terms related to the topics. Latah has been found predominantly in Malaysia, but similar syndromes occur in the Philippines (mali-mali), Burma (yaun), and among indigenous peoples in Siberia (myriachif) and Japan (imo). Frequently, structural suffering is related to culture-bound syndromes, which are psychopathologies (suite of signs and symptoms) restricted to certain cultural environments. The term means ‘to engage furiously in battle.’ Symptoms include wild, aggressive behavior. Disease and illness are separate concepts. A Tsaatan shaman in northern Mongolia prepares for a ceremony. Cultural Anthropology, 6th edition. The cross-cultural study of specific causal explanations for health-related problems is called ethno-etiology. The symptoms include an aversion to food accompanied by depression and anxiety. Men, and sometimes women, dance around a circle of women who sit around a fire, clapping and singing. These can vary by group (e.g., ethnicity and socioeconomic status), geography, incidence, and severity. This states that emotional experiences cause illness. Caused by a sudden shock, e.g., death of a loved one, or fright, the individual enters a dissociative, highly suggestible state where they readily follow the commands of others. Medical anthropology is the research area within cultural anthropology that marries concepts from biological and cultural anthropology to better understand health and disease among humans. Early ethnomedicine studies focused on the health systems of indigenous peoples across the globe. Li et al., outline how mental illness in Chinese communities across the globe tends to carry Select one of the following ailments and describe and contrast the Western and Yogic approaches to healing it:; anxiety & panic attacks back pain Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, 2006. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1978. The LibreTexts libraries are Powered by MindTouch® and are supported by the Department of Education Open Textbook Pilot Project, the UC Davis Office of the Provost, the UC Davis Library, the California State University Affordable Learning Solutions Program, and Merlot. Hwa-byung, meaning fire disease, occurs in Korea. The Malagasy development program illustrates the importance of. Studies indicate that witiko is an extreme form of starvation anxiety (Martin 2012). Other examples of culture-bound syndromes that are not necessarily to structural suffering include: In the Western biomedical approach to healing, private healing is the norm; oftentimes only the patient and the professional health practitioner(s) is/are in the room. Western medicine is an example of which kind of disease theory? “Examples of Culture-Bound Syndromes.” Kimberly Martin, PhD. adj., adj psychiat´ric. The witiko spirit, which is a giant human-eating monster, eventually possesses the inflicted individual causing the person to acts of cannibalism and homicide. Psychotherapists are interested in the role emotions play in physical health. Sexual Difference Theories Somatization Cougar. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Reference, 2006. All definitions of health are imbued with moral, ethical, and political implications. Emotionalistic disease theory: Illness is due to a negative emotional experience. Medical Anthropology • Health care systems: beliefs, customs, and specialists concerned with preventing and curing illness – Personalistic disease theories: illness caused by sorcerers, witches, ghosts, or ancestral spirits – Naturalistic disease theories: illness explained in impersonal terms – Emotionalistic disease theories: assume that emotional experiences cause illness (e.g., susto) Healers must use supernatural means to learn the cause and to help cure illness. Some would classify it as part of applied anthropology, the fifth (often overlooked) anthropological sub-discipline. Anorexia nervosa: a culture-bound syndrome associated with affluent industrial societies. This page was last modified on 26 March 2020, at 16:20. answer. Unless otherwise noted, LibreTexts content is licensed by CC BY-NC-SA 3.0. What constitutes payment is highly variable, from salaries to livestock. 2, edited by H. James Birx, p. 859-861. When these humors were in balance, health prevailed; when they were out of balance or vitiated in some way, disease took over. Several times a month, the healing dance is performed to draw on the collective energy of the participants. For decades, anthropologists have been studying the interaction of cultural values and norms on health-related issues. happy, anger, disgust, fear, sadness, and surprise. susto: illness caused by anxiety or fright. Several theories were advanced from time to time to explain disease causation such as the supernatural theory of disease, the theory of humors by Greeks and Indians, the theory of contagion, the miasmatic theory which attributed disease to noxious air and vapours, the theory of spontaneous generation, etc. answer. A common goal of development projects is to. Boston: Prentice Hall, 2011. Park, Young-Joo. Ex: notions of fright)-Shaman What is it? 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