What's New on IJHC (Oct 2008)

Research

THE IMPACT OF ALLOPATHIC BIOMEDICINE ON THREE
“CULTURE-BASED” TRADITIONAL HEALING SYSTEMS
Stanley Krippner, Ph.D.

The U.S. Office of Alternative Medicine (OAM) of the United States National Institutes of Health held a 1985 conference to evaluate research needs in the field of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM). Its resulting guidelines have been used in this essay to describe three “culture-based” traditional healing systems and how they have interacted with allopathic biomedicine over the past several decades. After a brief description of Puerto Rican folk healing, it provides a first-hand observation of traditional Balinese shamanism and its encounter with Western psychiatry, the Andean Kallawaya system of healing and its interface with biomedicine, and Mexican-American Curanderismo and its long history of interaction with European medicine and, more recently, biomedicine in the United States. These systems are examples of “ethnomedicine,” a term that refers to the comparative study of medical systems in various cultures, focusing on beliefs and practices concerning sickness and health. It involves the observation and description of hygienic, preventive and healing practices, taking temporal and geographic references into account. From a post-modern perspective, it permits inspection of a “dominant” medical or healing system with those that lack equal power, and the outcomes of a clash between these systems.

Living with Life Challenges

INTRODUCING A TRANSPERSONAL, SPIRITUAL, HEALING FRAMEWORK FOR THE AFTERMATH OF TRAUMA
Ruth Grant Kalischuk, RN, PhD, Jason Solowoniuk, BHSc, MEd, and Gary Nixon, PhD

This article introduces a transpersonal spiritual framework describing the process of transformation and healing that may be experienced in the aftermath of trauma. The spiritual framework embraces four iterative processes: holding and containing, letting go and expanding, accepting and transforming, and embracing spirituality that may be used to provide guidance when working with individuals who have experienced trauma. A basic assumption underpinning the framework suggests that trauma survivors have within themselves a core essence/spiritual self that enables them to establish a post-trauma identity that eventually re-connects them with the natural flow of life allowing them to live fully. Ultimately, this spiritual framework offers clinicians with a holistic lens for viewing and treating individuals who have experienced trauma in their lives.