Islam and mental health: A few speculations.

Tags:

• ADJUSTMENT (Psychology)
• ISLAM
• mental health
• RESEARCH -- Methodology

Religiously integrated psychotherapy with Muslim clients: From research to practice.

Tags:

• Coping Behavior
• empirical research
• mental health
• MUSLIMS
• positive religious coping
• Psychological Assessment
• psychological measures
• Psychotherapy
• religion
• religious struggle
• religiously integrated psychotherapy
• stigma

The Sacred in the Scientific: Ambiguous Practices of Science in Tibetan Medicine

Applying Qur’anic metaphors in counseling.

Tags:

• Counseling
• Cross Cultural Counseling
• Metaphor
• Quran
• Religious Literature
• therapeutic tools

Values, qualifications, ethics and legal standards in Arabic (Islamic) medicine

Tags:

• Arab World
• Ethics, Medical
• Female
• History, 20th Century
• History, Ancient
• History, Medieval
• Humans
• ISLAM
• Liability, Legal
• Male
• Medicine, Arabic
• Moral Obligations
• Quality of Health Care
• Social Values

Notes:

• Many historians claim that the Western world pioneered in the setting of ethical, legal and professional standards in the practice of medicine. Informed medical consent is proposed by some as an American invention. Others claim that patient rights and legal protection propose have stated in the early decades of the 20th century. This review is an attempt to uncover the facts regarding the way Arabs practiced medicine during the golden era of Islam. Eight hundred to fifteen hundred AD this includes the qualification of physicians according to a well designed curricula covering the science and humanity of medicine. The rules governing the quality control of health care delivery system and to some degree the principles of informed medical consent and to a lesser degree the principles of litigation are discussed. We hope that this paper will be a call to all humanity loving persons to end prejudices against other people and to stop stereotyping.

The Subtle Energies of Spirit: Explorations in Metaphysical and New Age Spirituality

Cultural differences: practising medicine in an Islamic country

Tags:

• Abortion, Induced
• Blood Transfusion
• Female
• Fertilization in Vitro
• Hospitals, University
• Humans
• ISLAM
• Male
• Organ Transplantation
• Physician-Patient Relations
• Pregnancy
• Religion and Medicine
• SAUDI Arabia
• Sterilization, Reproductive

Notes:

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  Islam and Muslims have been in the headlines recently for one reason or another. But the practice of medicine in an Islamic conservative country such as Saudi Arabia has not been adequately reported. Many questions about cultural differences in the practice of medicine have been directed at me by non-Muslim colleagues. Below, I have tried to answer some of them after practising at a university hospital in Saudi Arabia for the last 25 years.

   

South African Muslim Faith Healers perceptions of mental illness: understanding, aetiology and treatment

Tags:

• Faith Healing
• Humans
• Interviews as Topic
• ISLAM
• Mental Disorders
• Religion and Psychology
• South Africa

Notes:

• The important role that religious beliefs may have on perceptions of mental illness cannot be ignored. Many religions including Islam advocate witchcraft and spirit possession--all of which are thought to influence the behaviour of a person so as to resemble that of a mentally ill individual. Thus this research explored Muslim Faith Healers perceptions of mental and spiritual illness in terms of their understanding of the distinctions between the two, the aetiologies and the treatments thereof. Six Muslim Healers in the Johannesburg community were interviewed and thematic content analysis was used to analyse the data. From the results it is clear that the faith healers were aware of the distinction between mental and spiritual illnesses. It was also apparent that Islam has a clear taxonomy that distinguishes illness and the causes thereof. Treatments are then advised accordingly. Thus this paper argues that the predominant Western view of the aetiology and understanding of mental illness needs to acknowledge the various culturally inclined taxonomies of mental illness so as to better understand and aid clients.

Gandhi's Body, Gandhi's Truth: Nonviolence and the Biomoral Imperative of Public Health

Notes:

• Joseph S. Alter offers a novel reading of Mahatma Gandhi’s writings on diet, sex, and hygiene. By arguing “that nonviolence was, for him, as much an issue of public health as an issue of politics, morality, and religion,” this reading challenges previous studies that delink Gandhi’s preoccupation with issues of health from his political ideas and agenda as well as works that treat those links together but only in terms of psychological and sociopsychological meta-interpretations. Alter also takes a different line on the Mahtama’s conception of health by contextualizing it within the framework of what he terms “late imperialism,” a framework which enables the author to view his subject’s personal convictions “in the context of colonialism’s impact on subject bodies.” In other words, Gandhi’s personal “experiments with truth,” whether they centered on dietetics, celibacy, hygiene, and nature cure, cannot be separated from his search for truth, or from his belief in nonviolence, or his campaign for sociopolitical reform.

Rethinking the history of medicine in Asia: Hakim Mohammed Said and the Society for the Promotion of Eastern Medicine

Tags:

• China
• Colonialism
• Historiography
• History of Medicine
• History, 20th Century
• History, Ancient
• History, Medieval
• Medicine, Chinese Traditional
• Medicine, Unani
• Pakistan

Notes:

• In 1963 Hakim Mohammed Said took a Pakistani delegation from the Society for the Promotion of Eastern Medicine on a monthlong trip to China to meet with and learn from practitioners of Traditional Chinese Medicine. This essay focuses on Said’s interpretation of the history of medicine in Asia, which was inspired by his trip and informed by a broad, global understanding of how Unani medicine developed from the eighth century to the present. Said’s advocacy of Eastern Medicine provides a way to think about the history of medicine and medical revitalization that is not limited by colonial, postcolonial, or nationalist assumptions and priorities.

Practice versus theory: tenth-century case histories from the Islamic Middle East

Tags:

• Eye Diseases
• History, Medieval
• Humans
• ISLAM
• Medicine
• Middle East
• Philosophy, Medical
• Practice Management, Medical

Notes:

• Medicine and disease in medieval Islam have thus far been approached through theoretic medical treatises, on the assumption that learned medical texts are a transparent account of reality. A question yet to be sufficiently explored is the extent to which the ideas and theoretical principles they contain were actually carried out in practice. This paper deals with the description of diseases occurring in a tenth-century Casebook (Kitab al-Tajarib) by Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Zakariya’ al-Razi (known to Europeans as Rhazes)-the largest and oldest collection of case histories, so far as is known, in medieval Islamic medical literature. Since the author was a prolific medical writer, this study also includes a review of his medical and therapeutic principles dealing with eye diseases, as described in his learned treatises, and a comparison with those therapies actually employed in his everyday practice, as exemplified by the Casebook. The comparative analysis shows that the medical knowledge and the therapeutic advice so meticulously described in theoretical works were not paralleled in the physician’s medical performance. On the contrary, it appears that learned treatises served other purposes than determining medical practice.

The faunal drugstore: Animal-based remedies used in traditional medicines in Latin America

Psychological healing and faith in the doctrine of Karma.

Tags:

• Faith
• healing
• HINDU philosophy
• KARMA
• MENTAL representation

Shamanisms Today

Islam and mental health

Tags:

• Alcoholism
• Attitude to Health
• Cultural Characteristics
• Health Behavior
• Health promotion
• Humans
• ISLAM
• Mental Disorders
• mental health
• Religion and Medicine
• Religion and Psychology

Notes:

• This paper discusses the importance of a spiritual element in health with particular reference to mental health and Islam. The Islamic spiritual quest is outlined and some directives described. Specific examples are given of their application to health.

The Sociopolitical Status of U. S. Naturopathy at the Dawn of the 21st Century

Notes:

• Naturopathic medicine in the United States had its inception around the turn of the 20th century. Subsequently, it underwent a process of relatively rapid growth until around the 1930s, followed by a period of gradual decline almost to the point of extinction due to biomedical opposition and the advent of “miracle drugs.” Because its therapeutic eclecticism had preadapted it to fit into the holistic health movement that emerged in the 1970s, it was able to undergo a process of organizational rejuvenation during the last two decades of the century. Nevertheless, U.S. naturopathy as a professionalized heterodox medical system faces several dilemmas as it enters the new millennium. These include (1) the fact that it has succeeded in obtaining licensure in only two sections of the country, namely, the Far West and New England; (2) increasing competition from partially professionalized and lay naturopaths, many of whom are graduates of correspondence schools; and (3) the danger of cooptation as many biomedical practitioners adopt natural therapies.

Divergence and Convergence in Two Systems of Manual Medicine: Osteopathy and Chiropractic in the United States

Notes:

• Although osteopathy and chiropractic emerged as medical revitalization movements with a similar disease theory during the late 19th century, osteopathy has evolved into osteopathic medicine and surgery, and chiropractic has evolved into a musculoskeletal speciality. In this article I attempt to explain the divergent evolution of these two schools of manual medicine in the United States by considering their respective roles in addressing various structural problems in American health care, their contrasting relationships with biomedicine, organized biomedicine’s stance toward the two alternative medical systems, and internal organizational conflicts within osteopathy and chiropractic. It will also show that both osteopathy and chiropractic were forced to some degree to converge with biomedicine both conceptually and therapeutically.

The effects of Islam and traditional practices on women's health and reproduction

Tags:

• Abortion, Induced
• Adult
• Attitude to Health
• Culture
• Educational Status
• Family Planning Services
• Female
• Humans
• ISLAM
• Maternal Health Services
• Questionnaires
• Religion and Medicine
• Turkey
• Women's Health

Notes:

• The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of Islam as a religion and culture on Turkish women’s health. The study included 138 household members residing in the territory of three primary health care centers in Turkey: Güzelbahçe, Fahrettin Altay and Esentepe. Data were collected by means of a questionnaire prepared by a multidisciplinary team that included specialists from the departments of public health, psychiatric nursing and sociology. We found that the women’s health behavior changed from traditional to rational as education levels increased, and that religious and traditional attitudes and behaviors were predominant in the countryside, especially practices related to pregnancy, delivery, the postpartum period, induced abortion and family planning. One of the most important prerequisites for the improvement of women’s health is that nurses should know the religious practices and culture of the society for which they provide care, so that their efforts to protect and improve women’s health will be effective.

Metaphor and Illness Classification in Traditional Thai Medicine

Cognitive Process: A Buddhist explanation of information process and its congruent reactions

Notes:

• Applies Buddhist philosophy to cognitive processes; positions BUddha as a cognitive psychologist meditation The author presents a Buddhist understanding of the cognitive process of incoming information, its circulation and its congruent reactions based on the Buddhist spiritual meditative tradition of South and Southeast Asia. He asserts that Buddha can be credited as the first cognitive psychologist who propounded one of the most comprehensive analytic systems of cognitive process with an ultimate aim of achieving an altered psychological state of positive change and equilibrium reaction. Abstract from a paper given at the Epilepsy, Brain and Mind conference in March 2010, in Prague, Czech Republic.

The Buddha as a fully functioning person: toward a person-centered perspective on mindfulness

Clinical research on ayurvedic therapeutics: myths, realities and challenges

Tags:

• Dose-Response Relationship, Drug
• Humans
• Medicine, Ayurvedic
• Phytotherapy
• Plants, Medicinal
• Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic
• Research
• Treatment Outcome

Notes:

• Globally there is an increasing interest in alternative routes to health such as ayurveda. There is a need to conduct globally acceptable clinical research in ayurvedic therapeutics (AT). Some of the issues in investigating AT in randomised clinical trials (CT) are: selection of appropriate AT, non-drug and/or drug AT, identification of objective outcomes, devising adequate placebo/positive controls, difficulties of blinding, guarding against bias, duration of trials, number of patients, dose optimisation, etc. There is also a need to establish reasonable safety of this therapy in CT. If AT has to complete with new chemical entities and biotechnology products, clinical research and development of AT should be focussed on unmet medical needs utilising principles and practices of modern CT approaches.

Integrated approach to yoga

Tags:

• Holistic Health
• Humans
• Medicine, Ayurvedic
• spirituality
• yoga

Notes:

• Yoga is a science of Holistic living and not merely a set of Asanas and Pranayama. It is a psycho physical and spiritual science, which aims at the harmonious development of the human body, mind and soul. Yoga is the conscious art of self-discovery. It is a process by which animal man ascends through the stages from normal man to super man and then the divine man. It is an expansion of the narrow constricted egoistic personality to an all-pervasive eternal and blissful state of reality. Yoga is an all round development of personality at physical, mental intellectual, emotional and spiritual level.

Medicine and History as Theoretical Tools in a Confucian Pragmatism

Wu and Shaman

Notes:

• Since Shangdai de shenhua yu wushu, Chen Mengjia’s article on Shang mythology, some sinological works have proposed that the Chinese wu was an equivalent of the Siberian shaman. I examine first the issues in anthropological comparatism involved in this problem and provide up-to-date information on Siberian shamanism. It must be noted that the Chinese texts are by no means equivalent to modern anthropological data and that these texts did not originate directly from the wu themselves; they are rather a collection of opinions or stories on the wu. Detailed study of the nature and social status of the Chinese wu, either in oracular inscriptions or late Zhou received texts, shows a systematic association of the wu with non-auspicious or negative events, like funerals, death or natural catastrophes. A further analysis of the data reveals that the wu’s activities in relation to natural phenomena were frequently presented in terms related to sexuality. This last point permits a comparison with Siberian shamans, whose activities are also linked to fecundity and sexuality, although the Chinese texts often associate the wu with sexual misbehaviour and blame them on moral grounds. They go as far as to treat them as dangerous sorcerers who must be weeded out. According to these data, the wu’s social function is linked to the handling of misfortune, either directly or by being associated with ritually unacceptable behaviours. On the whole, my conclusion is that even the common point between wu and Siberian shaman (the link with sexuality) is not sufficient to allow for a translation of ‘wu’ by ‘shaman’, especially in view of the differences of social and historical context.

Historical perspectives on health. Early Arabic medicine

Tags:

• Arab World
• History of Nursing
• History, Ancient
• Hospitals
• Humans
• Medicine, Arabic
• Medicine, Traditional

Notes:

• The Arabian conquests during and after the 7th century led to a spread of Islam as well as the consequential influence of theology on health through the teachings of the Qur’an (Koran). Although traditional medicine was widely accepted and used, the character of early aggrandisement of Arabic medicine involved a facility for adapting and absorbing Graeco-Roman knowledge. The translation schools and libraries, famous in both the East and West, preserved and expanded the knowledge acquired. European academic learning owed much to the Arabs. Information came through Spain to Italy, France and, later on, England. The founding of hospitals, whilst not an Arab initiative, received a fillip from the religious prescriptions for care of the sick. The Military Orders developed specialist institutions for the sick, probably as a result of what they saw during their sojourn in the Middle East. The legacy of Arabic medical care is still with us today and deserves understanding and greater appreciation.

Yoga and Sexual Functioning: A Review

Tags:

• ASTANGA yoga
• Meditation
• PRANAYAMA
• SEX therapy
• SEXUAL disorders -- Alternative treatment
• YOGA -- Therapeutic use

'All is done by Allah'. Understandings of Down syndrome and prenatal testing in Pakistan

'Wellbeing': a collateral casualty of modernity?

How Islam changed medicine: Al-Nafis, Servetus, and Colombo

Tags:

• Blood Circulation
• History, 16th Century
• Humans
• ISLAM
• Medicine, Arabic
• Pulmonary Medicine

Religion, spirituality, health and medicine: Why should Indian physicians care?

Tags:

• India

Notes:

• Religion, spirituality, health and medicine have common roots in the conceptual framework of relationship amongst human beings, nature and God. Of late, there has been a surge in interest in understanding the interplay of religion, spirituality, health and medicine, both in popular and scientific literature. A number of published empirical studies suggest that religious involvement is associated with better outcomes in physical and mental health. Despite some methodological limitations, these studies do point towards a positive association between religious involvement and better health. When faced with disease, disability and death, many patients would like physicians to address their emotional and spiritual needs, as well. The renewed interest in the interaction of religion and spirituality with health and medicine has significant implications in the Indian context. Although religion is translated as dharma in major Indian languages, dharma and religion are etymologically different and dharma is closer to spirituality than religion as an organized institution. Religion and spirituality play important roles in the lives of millions of Indians and therefore, Indian physicians need to respectfully acknowledge religious issues and address the spiritual needs of their patients. Incorporating religion and spirituality into health and medicine may also go a long way in making the practice of medicine more holistic, ethical and compassionate. It may also offer new opportunities to learn more about Ayurveda and other traditional systems of medicine and have more enriched understanding and collaborative interaction between different systems of medicine. Indian physicians may also find religion and spirituality significant and fulfilling in their own lives.

The professional ethics of medieval pharmacists in the Islamic world

Tags:

• Ethics, Professional
• History, Medieval
• ISLAM
• Pharmacy

Notes:

• Most work on Islamic medical ethics has been in relation to the physician, yet physicians are only one category of many health-related professionals. In view of its role as mediator between the layman and medication, pharmacy is of perhaps equal importance. In medieval Islam, there seems to have been a clear differentiation between the physician and the pharmacist. However, most of our sources reflect the physician’s point of view. A text which uniquely reflects that of the pharmacist is the thirteenth-century Minhaj al-dukkan by al-Kuhin al-’Attar of Cairo. A comparison between the ethical contents of this book, and of similar works aimed at physicians, can indicate what the differences and similarities were between the “good physician” and the “good pharmacist.” Interestingly, the language used to define the “go od” professional is religiously neutral--there is nothing to evince a particular identity, beyond a general monotheism, on the part of the writers.

Ayurvedic medicine. Core concept, therapeutic principles, and current relevance

Tags:

• Arthritis
• Disease
• Humans
• Medicine, Ayurvedic
• Obesity
• Plant Preparations

Notes:

• In the prebiblical Ayurvedic origins, every creation inclusive of a human being is a model of the universe. In this model, the basic matter and the dynamic forces (Dosha) of the nature determine health and disease, and the medicinal value of any substance (plant and mineral). The Ayurvedic practices (chiefly that of diet, life style, and the Panchkarama) aim to maintain the Dosha equilibrium. Despite a holistic approach aimed to cure disease, therapy is customized to the individual's constitution (Prakruti). Numerous Ayurvedic medicines (plant derived in particular) have been tested for their biological (especially immunomodulation) and clinical potential using modern ethnovalidation, and thereby setting an interface with modern medicine. To understand Ayurvedic medicine, it would be necessary to first understand the origin, basic concept and principles of Ayurveda.

Claiming the Public Soul: Representations of Qur'anic Healing and Psychiatry in the Egyptian Print Media

Ayurveda and Panchakarma: measuring the effects of a holistic health intervention

Tags:

• Adult
• Female
• Health Behavior
• Holistic Health
• Humans
• Life Style
• Medicine, Ayurvedic
• Middle Aged
• Perception
• Quality of Life
• social support

Notes:

• Ayurveda, the traditional medical system of India, is understudied in western contexts. Using data gathered from an Ayurvedic treatment program, this study examined the role of psychosocial factors in the process of behavior change and the salutogenic process. This observational study examined associations with participation in the 5-day Ayurvedic cleansing retreat program, Panchakarma. Quality of life, psychosocial, and behavior change measurements were measured longitudinally on 20 female participants. Measurements were taken before the start of the program, immediately after the program, and 3 months postprogram. The program did not significantly improve quality of life. Significant improvements were found in self-efficacy towards using Ayurveda to improve health and reported positive health behaviors. In addition, perceived social support and depression showed significant improvements 3 months postprogram after the subjects had returned to their home context. As a program of behavior change, our preliminary results suggest that the complex intervention Panchakarma may be effective in assisting one’s expected and reported adherence to new and healthier behavior patterns.

Chiropractic in the United States: Trends and Issues

Notes:

• Chiropractic is the best established of the alternative health care professions. Although marginalized for much of the 20th century, it has entered the mainstream of health care, gaining both legitimacy and access to third-party payers. However, the profession’s efforts to validate the effectiveness of spinal manipulative therapy, its principal modality, have yielded only modest and often contrary results. At the same time, reimbursement is shrinking, the number of practitioners is growing, and competition from other healing professions is increasing. The profession’s efforts to establish a role in primary care are meeting resistance, and its attempts to broaden its activities in alternative medicine have inherent limitations. Although patients express a high level of satisfaction with chiropractic treatment and politicians are sympathetic to it, this may not be enough as our nation grapples to define the health care system that it can afford.

Medicine, Modernization, and Cultural Crisis in China and India

Tags:

• Medicine, Ayurvedic
• Medicine, Oriental

Psychiatric therapy and pharmacology in medieval Islam

Tags:

• History, Medieval
• ISLAM
• Pharmacology
• Psychiatry
• Religion and Medicine

Notes:

• Although psychiatric therapy and pharmacology in Medieval Islam are based on the ancient Greek tradition, the original Arabic contribution in the introduction and employment of new substances is undeniable. Another important aspect which received a decisive impetus by Arab physicians was the concept of psychical therapy.

The Shaman as Psychologist

Ancient-Modern Concordance in Ayurvedic Plants: Some Examples

Tags:

• Medicine, Ayurvedic

Tibetan Medicine and Regeneration

The Indus Valley Origin of a Yoga Practice

"Science" vs. "Religion" in Classical Ayurveda

Tags:

• Medicine, Ayurvedic
• Science and religion

Notes:

• This paper evaluates claims that classical Ayurveda was scientific, in a modern western sense, and that the many religious and magical elements found in the texts were all either stale Vedic remnants or later brahminic impositions. It argues (1) that Ayurveda did not manifest standard criteria of “science” (e.g., materialism, empirical observation, experimentation, falsification, quantification, or a developed conception of proof) and (2) that Vedic aspects of the classical texts are too central to be considered inauthentic or marginal. These points suggest that attempting to apply the modern western categories of “science” and “religion” to ancient South Asian medical texts at best obscures more important issues and, at worst, imports inappropriate orientalist assumptions. Having set aside the distraction of “science” vs. “religion” in classical Ayurveda, the paper finds support for claims that brahminic elements were later additions to the texts. It concludes by arguing that this is best explained not in terms of a conceptual tension between religion and science but in terms of social and economic tensions between physicians and brahmins.

An Ontology of Health: A Characterization of Human Health and Existence

Notes:

• The pursuit of health is one of the most basic and prevalent concerns of humanity. In order to better attain and preserve health, a fundamental and unified description of the concept is required. Using Paul Tillich’s ontological framework, I introduce a complete characterization of health and disease is that is useful to the philosophy of medicine and for health-care workers. Health cannot be understood merely as proper functioning of the physical body or of the separated levels of body, mind, and soul. Rather, the multidimensional unity that is the essence of human life requires a new understanding of health as balanced self-integration within the multiple human dimensions. The ontological description of health and disease has concrete implications for how health-care workers should approach healing. It calls for a multidimensional approach to healing in which particular healing is needed and helpful if it considers the other realms of the human. It reveals the importance of accepting limited health as well as the value of faith understood as an ultimate concern because of its ability to wholly integrate the person.

"Gambling for Qi": Suicide and Family Politics in a Rural North China County

Disease Etiologies in Non-Western Medical Systems

Notes:

• This paper argues that disease etiology is the key to cross-cultural comparison of non-Western medical systems. Two principal etiologies are identified: personalistic and naturalistic. Correlated with personalistic etiologies are the belief that all misfortune, disease included, is explained in the same way; illness, religion, and magic are inseparable; the most powerful curers have supernatural and magical powers, and their primary role is diagnostic. Correlated with naturalistic etiologies are the belief that disease causality has nothing to do with other misfortunes; religion and magic are largely unrelated to illness; the principal curers lack supernatural or magical powers, and their primary role is therapeutic.

On the Origin of Humoral Medicine in Latin America

Notes:

• For the past half-century humoral medicine has been recognized by anthropologists to be the most important and widespread ethnomedical system in Latin America. While most scholars believe this system is largely a simplified folk variant of classical Greek and Persian humoral pathology, a small minority--particularly Audrey Butt Colson and Alfredo López Austin--argues for a New World origin. In this paper the author supports the former hypothesis by tracing the well-documented history of classical medicine from Greece and Persia to Latin America, where it was disseminated via formal medical education, hospitals and missionary orders, home medical guides and pharmacies. The fallacies in the arguments of Colson and López Austin are also pointed out.

Sexuality and spirituality: the relevance of eastern traditions

Tags:

• Behavior
• Buddhism
• Cross-Cultural Comparison
• Culture
• Hinduism
• personality
• Psychology
• religion
• Research
• Sexuality

Notes:

• This article outlines some of the major Eastern sexual and spiritual traditions (primarily Hinduism, Taoism and Tantrism), and discusses their relevance for the contemporary Western world. The article begins by examining the sources of Eastern sexual traditions, before and after the “Axial” period, the turning point at which male consciousness and power gained ascendancy over the female principle. Although a phallocentric view of the world came to dominate the East, Eastern cultures -- unlike the West -- maintained a respect for nature. According to this view, health and spirituality are gained only when humanity respects its place in the cosmos and lives in harmony with nature. The article then examines the sexual traditions of Hinduism, in which sexual asceticism not only coexisted but also complimented the celebration of sexual desire and pleasure. The article then discusses the Taoist traditions, which, among other things, stressed the importance of female sexual satisfaction. Taoism argued that men cannot experience true sexual ecstasy unless they develop the ability to control their ejaculation. The Tantric sexual tradition, the article explains, maintained that ultimate sexual pleasure would enable one to experience the true nature of reality. The article then goes on to review variations of these traditions: the Hindu Tantric Doctrine (Shaktism), the Buddhist Tantric Doctrine, and Tantra and Yoga. Finally, the article considers the relevance of these Eastern philosophies to the Western sexual tradition, which has tended to view sexuality as antagonistic to spiritual liberation.

Moving Lines and Variable Criteria: Differences/Connections between Allpathic and Alternative Medicine

Notes:

• The standard narratives of medicine recognize its origins in natural cures and in religious or spiritual discourses. The uneasy relationships of such practices (now designated as complementary or alternative medicine [CAM]) to conventional health care today can be tracked to the formation of medicine as a distinct profession based on modern science. The author accepts four statements as a framework for exploring CAM in the context of modern medicine. The first is that all versions of unconventional medicine depend for their identity on the existence of conventional medicine. The second is that the distinctions between alternative and conventional medicine are variables of time, place, and the attitudes of health care practitioners. Third, CAM today in the West occupies no sharp and distinctive category. There are instead continuums of various slopes and lengths on which types of complementary and alternative medicine are arrayed. Fourth, the turn to CAM may represent a chronic (and, to some, welcome) inclination of the human intellect to delimit the energies of material inquiries with metaphysical baselines and options.

Unorthodox Medicine and American Religious Life

Falungong: recent developments in Chinese notions of healing

Tags:

• Anomie
• Asian Americans
• Attitude to Health
• Buddhism
• China
• Confucianism
• Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice
• Health promotion
• Health Status
• Humans
• Medicine, Chinese Traditional
• Morale
• Morals
• Nurse's Role
• Philosophy, Medical
• Religious Philosophies
• Social Change
• spirituality
• Transcultural Nursing
• Unemployment

Notes:

• Transcultural nursing literature provides a rich picture of prominent Chinese health-related beliefs derived from the traditions of Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism. However, these traditional beliefs are being challenged and modified in response to public discussion of a new spiritual movement, Falungong (also spelled Falun Gong). This movement calling for personal and social renewal has arisen in reaction to significant political and economic upheavals in Chinese society. This paper presents an overview of the Falungong movement and the health beliefs it advances. Implications for U.S. nursing practice are discussed.

The five generations of American medical revolutions

Tags:

• Family Practice
• Health Care Reform
• History, 18th Century
• History, 19th Century
• History, 20th Century
• Specialties, Medical
• Technology, Medical
• United States

Notes:

• Current medical authors frequently use the term “revolution,” yet American medicine is resisting change rather than embracing it. The last completed American medical revolutionary movement was the specialist-technologist movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This paper describes a five-generational model of revolution. First-generation persons foment revolution; second-generation persons shape it into workable form and precipitate conflict; third-generation persons join the fight only when it appears to be all but won; fourth-generation persons enjoy the fruits of revolution; and fifth-generation persons, having risen to domination in the mature system, resist all attempts at reform by the next round of revolutionaries. In political revolutions, severe reactionary activity by the ruling party is often an indicator of an imminent overthrow by revolution. In scientific revolutions, the opposition of an established (specialist-technologist) paradigm to an emerging alternative (generalist) paradigm increases in intensity as the old order declines in strength; the opposition becomes most fierce just before the collapse of the old order. American specialist-technologist medicine, declining into its senescent fifth generation, will resist all but incremental change whenever possible, and accept major change only by force.

My Ishvara is dead: spiritual care on the fringes

The influence of Islam on AIDS prevention among Senegalese university students

Tags:

• Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome
• Adolescent
• Adult
• Female
• Humans
• ISLAM
• Male
• Questionnaires
• Religion and Sex
• Senegal
• Sexual behavior
• Students
• Young Adult

Notes:

• Few studies have attempted to quantify Islam’s contributions to HIV/AIDS prevention. Senegal has involved Muslim leaders in its prevention campaign for over a decade. Senegal also has the lowest HIV/AIDS prevalence rate in sub-Saharan Africa. This study examines how Islam influences AIDS prevention by testing whether Senegalese participants’ religiosity scores explain their risky decisions associated with sex, condom use, and drug use. Participants with higher religiosity scores were more likely to abstain from sex. However, participants high in religiosity were not more likely to report that they did not use condoms when sexually active.

Early American mesmeric societies: a historical study

Tags:

• History, 18th Century
• History, 19th Century
• Humans
• Hypnosis
• Societies
• United States

Notes:

• Following an unsuccessful attempt by Mesmer to bring animal magnetism to the United States in 1784 through the Marquis de Lafayette, there was a period of little activity there for several decades. Then, concurrent with its revival in Europe and led by a few American practitioners who had been trained in France, several early societies of American magnetizers were founded beginning about 1815. These were initially organized in New York City and subsequently in New Orleans, Boston, Clinton, Cincinnati, Louisville, and Philadelphia. They played an important role in the development of hypnosis in America.

Human nature and the nature of reality: conceptual challenges from consciousness research

Tags:

• Consciousness
• Emotions
• Humans
• Psychology
• Psychotherapy

Notes:

• Holotropic states (a large special subgroup of nonordinary states of consciousness) have been the focus of many fields of modern research, such as experiential psychotherapy, clinical and laboratory work with psychedelic substances, field anthropology, thanatology, and therapy with individuals undergoing psychospiritual crises (“spiritual emergencies”). This research has generated a plethora of extraordinary observations that have undermined some of the most fundamental assumptions of modern psychiatry, psychology, and psychotherapy. Some of these new findings seriously challenge the most basic philosophical tenets of Western science concerning the relationship between matter, life, and consciousness. This article summarizes the most important major revisions that would have to be made in our understanding of consciousness and of the human psyche in health and disease to accommodate these conceptual challenges. These areas of changes include: a new understanding and cartography of the human psyche; the nature and architecture of emotional and psychosomatic disorders; therapeutic mechanisms and the process of healing; the strategy of psychotherapy and self-exploration; the role of spirituality in human life; and the nature of reality.

Present at the creation: the clinical pastoral movement and the origins of the dialogue between religion and psychiatry

Making medicine indigenous: homeopathy in South India

Tags:

• Colonialism
• History, 20th Century
• Homeopathy
• India
• Medicine, Traditional
• Political Systems
• Science

Notes:

• Historical studies of homeopathy in Europe and the USA have focused on practitioners’ attempts to emphasize ‘modern’ and ‘scientific’ approaches. Studies of homeopathy in India have focused on a process of Indianization. Arguing against such unilineal trajectories, this paper situates homeopathy in South India within the context of shifting relations between ‘scientific’ and ‘indigenous’ systems of medicine. Three time periods are considered. From 1924 through 1934, homeopathy was singled out by Government of Madras officials as ‘scientific’, as contrasted with the ‘indigenous’ Ayurvedic, Siddha, and Unani systems of medicine. From 1947 through 1960, both ‘indigenous’ and ‘scientific’ interpretations of homeopathy were put forward by different factions. An honorary director of homeopathy proposed the Indianization of homeopathy, and its reconciliation with Ayurveda; this view conflicted with the Madras government’s policy of expanding the ‘scientific’ medical curriculum of the Government College of Indigenous Medicine. It was not until the early 1970s that homeopathy was officially recognized in Tamilnadu State. By then, both homeopathy and Ayurveda had become conceptualized as non-Tamil, in contrast with promotion of the Tamil Siddha system of ‘indigenous’ medicine. Thus, constructs of ‘indigenous’ and ‘scientific’ systems of medicine are quite malleable with respect to homeopathy in South India.

Abortion and Islam: policies and practice in the Middle East and North Africa

Tags:

• Abortion, Induced
• Africa, Northern
• Aftercare
• Contraception
• Cultural Characteristics
• Family Planning Services
• Female
• Health Policy
• Health Services Accessibility
• Humans
• ISLAM
• Middle East
• Patient Advocacy
• Pregnancy
• Women's Health
• Women's Rights

Notes:

• This paper provides an overview of legal, religious, medical and social factors that serve to support or hinder women’s access to safe abortion services in the 21 predominantly Muslim countries of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, where one in ten pregnancies ends in abortion. Reform efforts, including progressive interpretations of Islam, have resulted in laws allowing for early abortion on request in two countries; six others permit abortion on health grounds and three more also allow abortion in cases of rape or fetal impairment. However, medical and social factors limit access to safe abortion services in all but Turkey and Tunisia. To address this situation, efforts are increasing in a few countries to introduce post-abortion care, document the magnitude of unsafe abortion and understand women’s experience of unplanned pregnancy. Religious fatawa have been issued allowing abortions in certain circumstances. An understanding of variations in Muslim beliefs and practices, and the interplay between politics, religion, history and reproductive rights is key to understanding abortion in different Muslim societies. More needs to be done to build on efforts to increase women’s rights, engage community leaders, support progressive religious leaders and government officials and promote advocacy among health professionals.

New Geographies of Chinese Medicine

Maharishi International University: "Science of Creative Intelligence"

Reproductive issues from the Islamic perspective

Notes:

• The Islamic faith is regarded by its followers, Muslims, as a complete way of life. A multitude of nationalities practice Islam and also various sects, and as a result there are various interpretations of Qur’anic guidance relating to almost every matter. Only a fully qualified jurist of the highest rank can issue edicts on problems that are not already clearly addressed in the Qur’an. This applies to contemporary issues and any Muslim is at liberty to debate and dialogue with the religious leader to obtain a ruling on a specific question. Marriage is described as half the faith in Islam and to have children is seen as a great blessing. There is no religious objection to an infertile married couple pursuing any form of infertility treatment including in vitro fertilization, surgical sperm retrieval and micro-assisted conception methods. However, there must be strict control to ensure that the gametes belong to the husband and wife. This relationship is described as ‘halal’ (permitted), whereas any union of gametes outside a marital bond, whether by adultery or in the laboratory, is ‘haraam’ (forbidden). Therefore, donor sperm pregnancies are strictly forbidden in all schools of Islamic law. The advent of ovum donation and surrogacy has led some Islamic scholars to allow this procedure between co-wives thereby avoiding the ‘haraam’ relationship between sperm and egg, but there is still debate on the definition of the mother. Similarly, treating any other situation outside a marriage relationship, for example fertilization of an ovum from cryopreserved sperm after divorce of the couple or death of the husband would be ‘haraam’ and strictly forbidden. The Qur’anic guidance is quite clear that the couple can pursue all permitted treatments but may need to accept that they may not achieve a pregnancy. Adoption is encouraged in Islam with the specific rule that the child must be able to identify its biological father by keeping his name. It must be emphasized that Muslims will vary on their degree of adherence to the faith and the practitioner should present all the options to the couple without assuming which treatments they will or will not accept.

Karma, reincarnation, and medicine: Hindu perspectives on biomedical research

Notes:

• Prior to the completion of the Human Genome Project, bioethicists and other academics debated the impact of this new genetic information on medicine, health care, group identification, and peoples’ lives. A major issue is the potential for unintended and intended adverse consequences to groups and individuals. When conducting research in, for instance, American Indian and Alaskan native (AI/AN) populations, political, cultural, religious and historical issues must be considered. Among African Americans, the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment is a reminder of racism and discrimination in this country. The goal of the current study is to understand reasons for participating, or not, in genetic research such as the HapMap project and other genetic/medical research from the perspective of the Indian American community in Houston, Texas. In this article, we report on a topic central to this discussion among Indian Americans: karma and reincarnation. Both concepts are important beliefs when considering the body and what should happen to it. Karma and reincarnation are also important considerations in participation in medical and genetic research because, according to karma, what is done to the body can affect future existences and the health of future descendants. Such views of genetic and medical research are culturally mediated. Spiritual beliefs about the body, tissue, and fluids and what happens to them when separated from the body can influence ideas about the utility and acceptability of genetic research and thereby affect the recruitment process. Within this community it is understood that genetic and environmental factors contribute to complex diseases such as diabetes, hypertension, and cancer; and acknowledgment of the significance of environmental stressors in the production of disease. A commitment to service, i.e. “betterment of humanity,” karmic beliefs, and targeting environmental stressors could be prominent avenues for public health campaigns in this population. This study suggests that minority status does not automatically indicate unwillingness to participate in genetic or medical research. Indian Americans were not skeptical about the potential benefits of biomedical research in comparison to other ethnic minority communities in the United States.

Cherokee Healing: Myth, Dreams, and Medicine

The Transformations of Tibetan Medicine

Notes:

• This article presents a cultural and historical analysis of 20th-century Tibetan medicine. In its expansion into the state bureaucracy, Tibetan medicine has acceded to institutional modernity through transformations in theory, practice, and methods for training physicians. Despite Chinese rule in Tibet, however, Tibetan medicine has not yielded completely to state interests. With the collapsing of the traditionally pluralistic Tibetan health system into the professional sector of Tibetan medicine, contemporary Tibetan medicine has become to the laity a font of ethnic revitalization and resistance to the modernization policies of the Chinese state. These processes are particularly evident in the elaboration of disorders of rlung, a class of sicknesses that, collectively, have come to symbolize the suffering inherent in rapid social, economic, and political change.

Native American Traditional and Alternative Medicine

Notes:

• Native American traditional medicine is alive and vibrant in many North American societies, although not all. These traditions coexist with other forms of healing, and the particular patterns of existence, interaction, and meaning vary among groups. The literature examining these issues is likewise diverse. This article explores, through a selective review of the recent literature, how social and behavioral scientists, among others, are focusing their investigations of traditional and alternative medicine in Native American communities of the United States and Canada today. Issues include how native practices have persisted and changed, how they are being used (e.g, in framing cultural identity), and how they interact with other systems, especially biomedicine and faith healing.

Shamanism in South Asia: A Preliminary Survey

On the Meaning of Yoga

A biostatistical approach to ayurveda: quantifying the tridosha

Tags:

• Algorithms
• Biometry
• Complementary Therapies
• Humans
• Medicine, Ayurvedic
• Qi
• Regression Analysis

Notes:

• Objective: To compute quantitative estimates of the tridosha--the qualitative characterization that constitutes the core of diagnosis and treatment in Ayurveda--to provide a basis for biostatistical analysis of this ancient Indian science, which is a promising field of alternative medicine. SUBJECTS: The data sources were 280 persons from among the residents and visitors/training students at the Brahmvarchas Research Centre and Shantikuj, Hardwar, India. DESIGN/METHODOLOGY: A quantitative measure of the tridosha level (for vata, pitta, and kapha) is obtained by applying an algorithmic heuristic approach to the exhaustive list of qualitative features/factors that are commonly used by Ayurvedic doctors. A knowledge-based concept of worth coefficients and fuzzy multiattribute decision functions are used here for regression modeling. VALIDATION AND APPLICATIONS: Statistical validation on a large sample shows the accuracy of this study’s estimates with statistical confidence level above 90%. The estimates are also suited for diagnostic and prognostic applications and systematic drug-response analysis of Ayurvedic (herbal and rasayanam) medicines. An application with regard to the former is elucidated, extensions of which might also be of use in investigating the role of nadis in Ayurvedic healing vis-a-vis acupuncture and acupressure techniques. The importance and scope of this novel approach are discussed. Conclusions: This pioneering study shows that the concept of tridosha has a sound empirical basis that could be used for the scientific establishment of Ayurveda in a new light.

Shamanism and Christianity: Modern-Day Tlingit Elders Look at the Past

Notes:

• Shamanism, a key element of the precontact Tlingit culture, was seen by Christian missionaries as one of the worst manifestations of paganism. A relentless campaign waged against the shamans by the missionaries, with the help of military and civil authorities, succeeded: by the final decades of the nineteenth century, the Tlingit had converted to Christianity, and by the 1930s most of the shamans had disappeared. In their effort to reconcile Christianity and the “traditional culture,” modern-day Tlingit elders construct various interpretations of shamanism. The article examines these accounts as indigenous history and as ideological statements that challenge the notion of the inferiority of the aboriginal Tlingit religion to Christianity.

Samādhi in Patañjali's Yoga Sūtras

An introduction to Ayurveda

Tags:

• Humans
• Medicine, Ayurvedic

Notes:

• Ayurveda is a Sanskrit word derived from two roots: ayur, which means life, and veda, knowledge. Knowledge arranged systematically with logic becomes science. During the due course of time, Ayurveda became the science of life. It has its root in ancient vedic literature and encompasses our entire life, the body, mind, and spirit.

Āyurveda and the Hindu Philosophical Systems

Tags:

• Medicine, Ayurvedic

Esoteric healing traditions: a conceptual overview

Tags:

• Complementary Therapies
• Evidence-Based Medicine
• Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice
• Holistic Health
• Homeopathy
• Humans
• Medicine, Traditional
• Meditation
• Mind-Body Therapies
• Naturopathy
• Religion and Medicine
• Shamanism
• spirituality

Notes:

• This paper presents, for the first time, a comprehensive scholarly examination of the history and principles of major traditions of esoteric healing. After a brief conceptual overview of esoteric religion and healing, summaries are provided of eight major esoteric traditions, including descriptions of beliefs and practices related to health, healing, and medicine. These include what are termed the kabbalistic tradition, the mystery school tradition, the gnostic tradition, the brotherhoods tradition, the Eastern mystical tradition, the Western mystical tradition, the shamanic tradition, and the new age tradition. Next, commonalities across these traditions are summarized with respect to beliefs and practices related to anatomy and physiology; nosology and etiology; pathophysiology; and therapeutic modalities. Finally, the implications of this survey of esoteric healing are discussed for clinicians, biomedical researchers, and medical educators.

The Context of Schizophrenia and Shamanism

Chinese medicine and its modernization demands

Tags:

• Humans
• Medicine, Chinese Traditional

Notes:

• As a typical naturally derived drug, traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) has developed for several thousands of years and accumulated abundant human pharmacological information and experience to form an integrated theory system. However, the problems of lower product quality, substandard codes and standards, and under-enhancement of fundamental research have restricted its further development and acceptance internationally. In this review, we explain the origin and developmental history of TCM, species involved in TCM, and their distributions in biotaxy. According to the status and problems, it is concluded that TCM modernization has become necessary and urgent. Modernization of TCM means the combination of TCM with modern technology, modern academic thoughts, and modern scientific culture, in which the most important point is to elucidate the active component of TCM, especially the material foundation of compound prescriptions and their pharmacodynamic mechanisms. Technology of analytical chemistry (HPLC, HPCE, HSCCC, etc.) and molecular biology (patch clamp, gene clamp, gene chip, fluorescent probe, DNA TUNEL assay, in situ hybridization, etc.) are useful tools to realize the modernization of TCM. Based on those studies and achievements and coupled with computer technology, all TCM products will achieve digitalization and normalization. TCM modernization will provide the world with useful reference information on traditional medicines.

Science, Shamanism and Hermeneutics: Recent Writing on Psychoanalysis

Complementary spiritist therapy: systematic review of scientific evidence