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Sociology SOCL1016 MBBCH I Week 10
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- University Of The Witwatersrand (wits)
Week 10 of SOCL1016 MBBCH 1 Notes for University of Witwatersrand
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Sociology Week 10What is a healing system?
- A healing system provides a framework for understanding, talking about, and
intervening in health, illness, wellness & disease matter
Mind-body approaches to healing examples around the world
Sacred Secular
Ancient Faith healing Acupuncture
Prayer Shiatsu
Meditation Herbalism
Modern Christina Science Osteopathy
Spiritualism Homeopathy
New Age religions Aromatherapy
Secular approaches – not connected to spiritual or religious matters
Holistic health approaches with a central notion of balance in their conceptions of health
- Treatment based on correcting imbalance and restoration of health
- Support to patients’ innate ability to health (the body repairs itself )
These treatments have not proven to halt condition (e.g., Cancer)
They may also interfere with conventional treatment ; medical practitioners view them with
suspicious even hostility
Cancer and pain management are areas where alternatives healing systems have been
incorporated aromatherapy, massages, psychological approaches acupuncture
Societies with plural healing systems
, Healing systems
There are numerous Healing Systems in the world, but we will only focus on:
- African Traditional Medicine
- Ayurveda
- Allopathic
African Traditional Healing Systems
- Primary cause (personalistic): supernatural agent signifies the contravening of norms
or mores (social, community, ancestral, etc.) = ultimate cause
- Secondary cause (natural): germ, virus, parasite (symptomatic expression of
underlying personalistic cause) = proximate cause
- Traditional healers treat the actual cause (primary) while western medicine relieves the
symptoms (secondary)
Types of African Traditional Healing
As recognised by the THPA (2004) → Traditional Health Practitioners Act – Traditional
Health Practitioners Council of South Africa – registration, regulation & efficacy of
treatments; Traditional Healers Organization – practitioner education
- Diagnosticians/diviners (e.g., Izangoma, Amagqirha)
- Therapeutic persons (medicine men, herbalists, e.g., Izinyanga, Amaxhwele)
- Traditional midwives/birth attendants (Abazalisi, Ababelethisi)
- Traditional surgeons (Lingcibi)
- Prophets/faith healers (Abaprofeti, Abathandazeli)
Additional categories of ATH also may include:
- Magico-spiritual life sources
- Destructive and ‘evil’ forces (wizards and witches)
- Specialists (rainmakers, disease specialists)
Why is traditional healing popular in “own” groups/communities?
- Healers share the same socio-cultural values as their communities.
- Patients are much more comfortable with people from their own communities as
opposed to a health professional from outside the community
- In some cases, people who have not had much formal education tend to find difficult
to relate and communicate their problems within the parameters of the bio-medical &
the psycho-social-environmental models of health
- Virtually no problems with intercultural communication, especially language and
symbolic value
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