The ethnomedical approach of medical anthropology can be
described as how illness is identified, understood, and treated in different
cultural contexts. I thought the course material that we went over this week
was very interesting. I had no knowledge that hospitals were going in different
directions such as bringing in shamans to treat certain people in different
cultures, as well as clown doctors that appeal to children by making them laugh
and smile (see below). In addition to these two forms of ethnomedicine, I am sure that
there are even more resources that can tailor to different cultures. I think
that culture is extremely important in terms of medicine. Culture can be split up into different sub-categories such as religious belief. There are thousands
of different cultures around the world. In western culture, we have a lot of
resources such as hospitals and doctors at our disposal. Kleiman explanatory
models of health were extremely helpful in applying anxiety into the field of
ethnomedicine. It basically means how people would treat this illness in
various cultures. This could be in either the popular, folk or professional
sector.
I found that the most common cure for anxiety, in terms of around the world is to seek therapy from a psychiatrist or take some form of benzo drug such as ativan or xanax. It makes me speculate on how anxiety is treated in places such as third world countries or countries that have very small cultural ties. Based on the lectures, I found various ways that the body could be conceptualized in the diagnosis and treatment of anxiety. I thought it was interesting that the body and mind were correlated together, the body being the "disease" and the mind being the "illness." I think that this completely applies to anxiety. Anxiety is a strictly cognitive impairment that causes physical symptoms. To provide an example, when I was having an anxiety attack I thought that I was having a heart attack. The mind can play crazy tricks on the body. This brings up the argument between what is an illness and what is disease, which we talked about in the forum posts this week. The relationship between the body and the mind can be displayed perfectly in the lecture about mind/body dualism. I believe, in relation to anxiety, that we need to know the different ethno medical views on how the body is related to its parts. I think that in order to get the body right, the mind needs to be right first, which is easier said than done in relation to anxiety. |
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