医学人类学 6 - Biosocialization 生物社会化

Biosocialization

Shamanism

A healing tradition that uses altered states of consciousness to heal

Present in many cultural contexts

“Trance” state - different people, different ability, learned behavior- can improve skill & ability to enter the trance state through practice - lose consciousnesses

How do shamans heal?

Manipulate symbols that represent the body, health, and illness to the patient

Invoking the boundary between the physical/material world & the spiritual world

- Examples: Claude Levi-Strauss example from the Cuna (song to gain the “spirit double” back to the body during the childbirth)

Shares some features with other healing traditions

Give experience / make it seem that the body is contacting the spiritual world - give meaning to the pain / experience - lead to the positive outcome

How does this cultural thing affect human body?

Biosocialization

Training of biological responses

Symbol associated with the body in the culture - symbolic manipulation gives effects on the body - body reacting to stimuli (wind at night, HR rises)

Can train physiological reactions (even healing) to particular symbols / stimuli

- Placebo Effect (healing - virtual clues)

Improvement in patients’ symptoms that are attributable to their participation in the therapeutic encounter, with its rituals, symbols and interactions

Biological - eg activate parts of the brain.

Usually address subjective and belief-appraised criteria - not actually “curing”

Can cause adverse effects as well (“nocebo effect”)

Testing the Placebo Effect - Psychology

- Experiments by Alia Crum:

Exercise and the Placebo Effect - attitude toward exercise affects the physical outcomes of the exercise (weight & BP, unknown mechanism)

“Mind over Milkshakes” - Mindset and expectation (how much enjoy food) when eating affects the biological processes involved in digestion - told cheaper / less-fat food (actually same) is more enjoyable biologically, with more peptide release (more hungry and more satisfied)

- Also fake coffee - rise Heart Rate

Symbolic healing is a form of healing that works through the manipulation of symbols that represent disease, health, and the body to the patient - more clear in children’s hospital.

Symbolic healing, Shamanism, Biosocialization, Placebo Effect - different healing experiences, different ways to interpret the causal mechanism - experience of healing exceeds the narrow physiological process.