This volume addresses the diversification of mental healthcare provision and patients’ health-seeking behavior by putting Brazilian Spiritism and its translocal relations at the center of its inquiry. Comparative chapters document and critically assess the affective arrangements of Spiritist spaces in Brazil and Germany and how practices contribute to healing and the diversification of a globally circulating mental health agenda. The book addresses the human experience within Spiritist psychiatric clinics and affiliated Spiritist centers in Brazil, which in migratory contexts also have connections to Germany. Chapters interrogate the spaces where people inside and outside Brazil engage in implementing Spiritist practices in mental healthcare, introducing the Aesthetics of Healing as a conceptual tool to understand interactions between religion and medicine more broadly. Establishing a novel analytical and interdisciplinary perspective on embodied aspects of sensory experience and perception, this compelling volume will be of interest to scholars, researchers, and postgraduate students involved with mental health research, medical anthropology, Spiritualism, and cross-cultural psychology. Practitioners in the fields of transcultural psychiatry and the sociology of religion will also find the volume of use.

"This volume addresses the diversification of mental healthcare provision and patients' health-seeking behavior by putting Brazilian Spiritism and its translocal relations at the center of its inquiry. Comparative chapters document and critically assess the affective arrangements of Spiritist spaces in Brazil and Germany and how practices contribute to healing and the diversification of a globally circulating mental health agenda. The book addresses the human experience within Spiritist psychiatric clinics and affiliated Spiritist centers in Brazil, which in migratory contexts also have connections to Germany. Chapters interrogate the spaces where people in- and outside Brazil engage in implementing Spiritist practices in mental healthcare, introducing the aesthetics of healing as a conceptual tool to understand interactions between religion and medicine more broadly. Establishing a novel analytical and interdisciplinary perspective on embodied aspects of sensory experience and perception, this compelling volume will be of interest to scholars, researchers, and postgraduate students involved with mental health research, medical anthropology, spiritualism, and cross-cultural psychology. Practitioners in the fields of transcultural psychiatry and the sociology of religion will also find the volume of use"--

When approaching the multiplicity of the spiritual experiences of healing, ethnographers are often presented with ideas of the existence of "other" worlds that may intersect with the so-called "material" or "physical" worlds. This book proposes a sensory ethnography of healing with a focus on ethnographic knowing as embedded in an embodied epistemology of healing. Epistemological embodiment signals that personal scholarly experience of the "unknown"--be it in the form of trance, or as the embodiment of an "other"--shapes the concepts of healing, body, trance, self, and matter by which ethnographers craft out analysis.

This book explores how people draw upon spiritual, religious, or faith-based practices to support their mental wellness amidst forms of chronicity. From diverse global contexts and spiritual perspectives, this volume critically examines several chronic conditions, such as psychosis, diabetes, depression, oppressive forces of colonization and social marginalization, attacks of spirit possession, or other forms of persistent mental duress. As an inter- and transdisciplinary collection, the chapters include innovative ethnographic observations and over 300 in-depth interviews with care providers and individuals living in chronicity, analyzed primarily from the phenomenological and hermeneutic meaning-making traditions. Overall, this book depicts a modern global era in which spiritualty and religion maintain an important role in many peoples’ lives, underscoring a need for increased awareness, intersectoral collaboration, and practical training for varied care providers. This book will be of interest to scholars of religion and health, the sociology and psychology of religion, medical and psychological anthropology, religious studies, and global health studies, as well as applied health and mental health professionals in psychology, social work, physical and occupational therapy, cultural psychiatry, public health, and medicine.

In this book, Susan A. Lord shares important stories and lessons from two undergraduate and two postgraduate clinical internships as colorful narratives that will augment texts in undergraduate and graduate practicum seminar classes. The chapters engage with fundamental issues, including the importance of safety and relationship-building, good supervision, the complexities of situationally determining what constitutes ethical practice, boundary-setting, suicide assessment, and professional identity development. Narratives about making mistakes, or "learning the hard way", include being robbed at gunpoint in Chicago, being stalked by a client, and sexual harassment. Each chapter concludes with a list of reflection, small group discussion, and class discussion questions designed to help the reader more deeply engage with the material on a personal, academic, and professional level. Written for students who are excited to begin their practicum experiences, this book explores how these experiences might be addressed and crucially stresses the importance of remembering that everyone is human and that clients are well-defended and resilient. A valuable resource for learning about the importance of safety, boundaries, and relationship development in any internship or practicum experience, it will appeal to students and scholars with interests in psychoanalysis, internship education, and relational psychotherapy.

Inspired by the neoliberal paradigm that transposes religious behaviors into a religious marketplace framed by consumerist and capitalist models, this volume draws on ethnographic fieldwork to discuss the assemblage between the well-being trope and the rise of new spiritualities, as well as their deep permeation within mainstream culture. Building on previous literature that addresses the relationship between spirituality, healing and well-being, this text discusses the religious roots of mind-body practices. The contributions offer a critical perspective on the scope, limits and impacts of the current celebration of spiritualities. Part I provides theoretical insights for thinking about ways in which the prevalent ethics of well-being reframes subjectivities within the margins of neoliberal order. Part II demonstrates how spiritual economies are promoted, shaped and regulated by institutional forces such as States, law and the labor market. In part III, contributors describe in detail how spiritual economies unfold in specific cultural and social settings. The text appeals to students and researchers working on the spirituality and sociology of religion.

An account of the philosophy, theory, practical applications and wider relevance of Spiritist therapies to be published in the English language. It explores how Spiritist centers and psychiatric hospitals are established and financed, with specific examples from Brazil and the USA.

This volume has articles contributed by health researchers, practitioners, policy advocates, programme managers and a journalist, and poems by renowned poet–physician Gieve Patel. Each presents a distinctive view of a particular group of frontline health providers, based on field research or on the authors’ respective experiences of working with or as providers. The health providers addressed in this volume include doctors (working in the public and private sectors), nurses, public health workers, counsellors, traditional practitioners and homecare providers. Different groups of health providers face struggles at diverse frontiers — social, professional and systemic. In the context of reforming health systems, government health workers must constantly negotiate the vagaries of changing working environments and policy vacillations. For traditional and homecare providers, formal health systems and structures often only reject and exclude their contributions. Medical doctors, conversely, face difficult challenges of introspection, as they tread the line between personal gain and public service. The ideas and themes that emerge in this collection not only contribute to the understanding of providers’ roles as actors in the health systems and societies of contemporary India, but re-examines preconceptions about this critical occupational group. This volume advances the case for a deeper appreciation of India’s complex landscape of healthcare provision, and of the potential roles of frontline health providers as central figures in development.

Scholars in folklore and anthropology are more directly involved in various aspects of medicine—such as medical education, clinical pastoral care, and negotiation of transcultural issues—than ever before. Old models of investigation that artificially isolated "folk medicine," "complementary and alternative medicine," and "biomedicine" as mutually exclusive have proven too limited in exploring the real-life complexities of health belief systems as they observably exist and are applied by contemporary Americans. Recent research strongly suggests that individuals construct their health belief systmes from diverse sources of authority, including community and ethnic tradition, education, spiritual beliefs, personal experience, the influence of popular media, and perception of the goals and means of formal medicine. Healing Logics explores the diversity of these belief systems and how they interact—in competing, conflicting, and sometimes remarkably congruent ways. This book contains essays by leading scholars in the field and a comprehensive bibliography of folklore and medicine.

This edited volume focuses on the role of traditional or indigenous healers, as well as the application of traditional healing practices in contemporary counseling and therapeutic modalities with Latina/o people. The book offers a broad coverage of important topics, such as traditional healer’s views of mental/psychological health and well-being, the use of traditional healing techniques in contemporary psychotherapy, and herbal remedies in psychiatric practice. It also discusses common factors across traditional healing methods and contemporary psychotherapies, the importance of spirituality in counseling and everyday life, the application of indigenous healing practices with Latina/o undergraduates, indigenous techniques in working with perpetrators of domestic violence, and religious healing systems and biomedical models. The book is an important reference for anyone working within the general field of mental health practice and those seeking to understand culturally relevant practice with Latina/o populations.