PubMed Health⌕ Search

SEARCH · PubMed Health

Results for “Ceremonial Behavior”

Explore indexed PubMed citations for clinical trials, systematic reviews and public health research. Read source abstracts and follow each citation to its original PubMed record.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 91 records · Page 5Linked to original sources
PubMed2003

"He is everything": religion's role in the lives of immigrant youth.

Using emergent theme analysis of qualitative interview data in combination with quantitative survey data, the role of religion in the lives of immigrant youth was explored. Latino, Haitian, and Chinese teenagers described, in their own rich words, the significance of religion to them; their responses are reflected in themes that point to the potential protective role of religion for some immigrant groups.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed1990

How do societies and "corporate" groups delimit themselves? A puzzle common to social and medical anthropology.

Classic anthropological theories define the first but neglect the second condition of social life. When they assume that the universal effect of the incest taboo is the opening of the consanguinial groups to the others, to exchange, they do not explain the closure of their sphere of reciprocity, i.e., the delimitation of the society. Hence the question: How, by which means, are stateless societies delimited or do they delimit themselves? Among the Senoufo of Ivory Coast (Nafara), one of the main acts of male initiation ceremonies--to the Poro, which is the very basis of the Senoufo's ethnic identity--is a ritual intercourse between the neophytes and their symbolic mother who has just given birth to them. This rite materializes the initiatic axiom: Senoufo men reproduce themselves by incest. In this case, the prescription of ritual incest is a means by which the society "closes" the field of reciprocity "opened" by the prohibition of actual incest. The return of the forbidden--at the heart of the institution which reproduces its identity--is the basic principle of the ritual delimitation of this society. Despite appearances, the delimitation of the so-called "corporate groups"--for example, an African lineage--is neither more "natural" nor more jural than that of the society which contains them. The limits of these groups are traced and retraced notably in the course of traditional "therapies" and by means of etiological entities which share several common, distinctive properties. (1) They cannot operate outside of the group delimited by them. (2) They are polyvalent and their effects are permutable from one group-member to another. (3) They act periodically: they have to dismantle the group periodically from the inside in order to be able to delimit it constantly from the outside. This phenomenon of spatio-temporal inversion (inside-outside; periodic-continuous), observable in any process of ritual delimitation, deserves our attention insofar as its closer analysis could lead us to rethink our present theories of ritual.

Ceremonial Behavior↗
PubMed1988

Ritual, the state, and the transformation of emotional discourse in Iranian society.

This paper explores the social and cultural organization of Iranian emotional discourse and its transformation in post-revolutionary Iran. First, the Moharram dramas we participated in during field research are described, indicating how these performances organized a 'prototypical' view of the social order, the self, and the passions. Using Kapferer's distinction between "transcendental" and "transformative" rituals, we argue that these dramas were traditionally organized as "transcendental" rites. Second, data on grieving rituals and depressive illness among Iranians is introduced, focusing on the "transformative" qualities of mourning rites and suggesting an interpretation of depression as a failure of the "work of culture." Third, the appropriation of these symbolic forms of society, self, and the emotions by the current Iranian Islamic state and the role of the state in defining the meaning and legitimacy of emotions and their expression is analyzed.

Ceremonial Behavior↗
PubMed1988

Reading Saedi's Ahl-e Hava: pattern and significance in spirit possession beliefs on the southern coasts of Iran.

Based on Saedi's description of spirit possession beliefs and practices on the southern coasts of Iran, this paper attempts to isolate the culturally and psychologically significant categories through which the possessed define and differentiate their possessing spirits or "Winds." It examines the play of these categories in the complex of relationships between the possessing spirits, the possessed, ritual specialists, "symptoms" of possession, and their "negotiations" in rituals of possession or exorcism. It examines from a semiotic perspective the double transformations of spirit and host which in the beliefs and practices of the People of the Air constitute "therapy." It points out areas for further research and analysis.

Ceremonial Behavior↗
PubMed1987

Healing spirits of South Kanara.

In South Kanara, India (formerly the kingdom of Tulunadu), and area stretching some 150 miles along the Arabian Sea and 25 to 50 miles inland, ancient forms of rural pageantry in honor of particular local Spirits are enacted yearly. These ritualized performances include elements of masked folk drama and epic recitation and serve a valued social role as a form of healing and counselling within village communities. Contemporary practitioner-patient interactions are part of an intricate tapestry partaking of customs occurring since times long past, such as the kinship structure (aliya-santana or nephew inheritance), the geopolitical milieu and the myths of Tulunadu. The power of these healing Spirits lies in their ability to reproduce social form through the cultural idiom of therapeutic efficacy.

Ceremonial Behavior↗
PubMed1991

The interpretations of fox possession: illness as metaphor.

Although fox possession is a rare phenomenon in contemporary Japan, it is a matter of concern in psychiatry and in folk healing. The case study presented here deals with the social process of role transformation, from client to shaman, as a way of self healing. The discussion then assumes that fox possession renders multiple interpretations and argues that it is, in fact, a metaphorical representation in much the same way that biomedical interpretation is. The argument also proposes that an etiological (causal) understanding of fox possession is less productive than a metaphorical one.

Animals↗
PubMed1983

The rhetoric of transformation in ritual healing.

The problem of reconciling accounts of religious healing from the points of view of comparative religion and medicine suggests the necessity of an interpretive or hermeneutic approach to the analysis of therapeutic process. This paper, in the context of examining psychotherapeutic ritual among Catholic Pentecostals, formulates an interpretive approach in which healing is conceived as a form of discourse that is both religious and psychiatric. This discourse embodies a cultural rhetoric capable of performing three essential persuasive tasks: to create a predisposition to be healed, to create the experience of spiritual empowerment, and to create the concrete perception of personal transformation. It is shown that this threefold process activates and controls healing processes endogenous to the supplicant in healing, and either redirects the supplicant's attention toward new aspects of his actions and experiences, or alters the manner in which he attends to accustomed aspects of those actions and experiences. The result is the creation of both a new phenomenological world, and new self-meaning for the supplicant as a whole and holy person.

Catholicism↗
PubMed1983

The evolution of witchcraft and the meaning of healing in colonial Andean society.

This paper explores the ways in which traditional beliefs of Andean peoples regarding health and sickness were transformed by the process of Spanish colonization. It also examines how the colonial context devolved new meanings and powers on native curers. The analysis of these transformations in Andean systems of meanings and role structures relating to healing depends on an examination of the European witchcraze of the 16th-17th centuries. The Spanish conquest of the Inca empire in the mid-1500's coincided with the European witch hunts; it is argued that the latter formed the cultural lens through which the Spanish evaluated native religion--the matrix through which Andean concepts of disease and health were expressed--as well as native curers. Andean religion was condemned as heresy and curers were condemned as witches. Traditional Andean cosmology was antithetical to 16th century European beliefs in the struggle between god and the devil, between loyal Christians and the Satan's followers. Consequently, European concepts of disease and health based on the power of witches, Satan's adherents, to cause harm and cure were alien to pre-Columbian Andean thought. Ironically European concepts of Satan and the supposed powers of witches began to graft themselves onto the world view of Andean peoples. The ensuing dialectic of ideas as well as the creation of new healers/witches forged during the imposition of colonial rule form the crux of this analysis.

Attitude to Health↗
PubMed1978

Scars of experience: the art of moxibustion in Japanese medicine and society.

Beliefs and practices surrounding moxibustion, a cautery technique used in Japan, are analyzed to demonstrate that the concept of holism is culture-bound and that the practice of East Asian medicine is often reductionistic. Pluralistic traditional medical belief systems of historical and contemporary Japan are discussed with reference to moxibustion. Moxa is used in popular family medicine, for ritual purification, as a technique to cure disease or as part of a holistic approach to healing; its symbolic meaning changes according to its usage and it serves to unite disparate medical beliefs. Socialization practices concerning attitudes towards illness reflect pluralistic values derived from traditional medical systems. One dominant set of values encourages patient and family responsibility during the healing process, adaptation to psychosocial relationships regarded as causal in disease occurrence and avoidance of verbal analysis of problems. These concepts, fundamental to East Asian medicine, cannot be readily adapted in the West as part of a holistic approach to health care.

Attitude to Health↗
PubMed1984

The role of hallucinogenic drugs and sensory stimuli in Peruvian ritual healing.

On Peru's north coast, curanderos perform night-long curing ceremonies in which the mescaline-bearing cactus San Pedro is used. The concept of autonomic nervous system tuning is presented as the best explanation for the overall physiological effect of the ritual. An assessment of the possible therapeutic impact of this condition is provided. Organic response and symbolic message are seen to resonate in the purificatory connotations of the ritual.

Arousal↗
PubMed1979

Potential and effective meaning in therapeutic ritual.

Anthropologists who accept the functionalist dogma that everything in a culture is related to everything else can easily demonstrate from their own point of view that any ritual is richly meaningful. If, then, the healing power of therapeutic ritual depends on making illness meaningful, any ritual, if seen from this perspective, should be efficacious. We must distinguish, however, between potential and effective meaning, i.e. what a ritual might mean and what it does mean to participants in it who generally lack an anthropologist's global view of their culture. Effective meaning can be assessed by examining a ritual's relevance to the situation in which it occurs and factors which facilitate or hinder communication of what it might mean to particular persons. This argument is illustrated by analyzing the meaning of a Chinese healing ritual in two different situations in which it occurs.

Adult↗
PubMed1993

Working with Jewish ultra-orthodox patients: guidelines for a culturally sensitive therapy.

The epistemological gap between the medical reality of mental health practitioners and the sacred reality of their Jewish ultra-orthodox patients poses a major challenge for therapy. Based on our work with psychiatric patients from the ultra-orthodox community of northern Jerusalem, we propose a set of guidelines to cope with this challenge. Basically, we seek to incorporate religiously congruent elements, composed of metaphoric images, narratives and actions, into the wide range of our "secular" treatment modalities in order to respond to the patient's suffering, often expressed through distinctively religious idioms of distress. This endeavor calls for "a temporary suspension of disbelief" on both sides. The guidelines presented include three sets of factors which appear pertinent to working with ultra-orthodox patients. The first set is contextual in nature, dealing with the image of the clinic and its physical setting; the second discusses the necessary role requisites of the therapists; and the third one, accorded a central importance, deals on various levels with the therapeutic interventions administered in terms of form and content. Several case vignettes are presented to illustrate three classes of religiously informed interventions: healing rituals, dream interpretation, and the use of culturally congruent metaphors and stories. In the concluding part we discuss ethical and instrumental issues that the proposed therapeutic guidelines may raise.

Acculturation↗
PubMed1995

Violence, solace, and ritual: a case study from island Southeast Asia.

Most headhunting traditions in island Southeast Asia link ritual violence to grief and mourning. Some of the more persuasive analyses of these practices pivot on notions of rage and catharsis, arguing that turbulent emotions motivate persons to take up cleansing acts of violence. This paper seeks a more complex understanding of how ritual may connect bereavement and violence through a look at case materials from highland Sulawesi (Indonesia). Ritual practices there suggest that the resolution of communal mourning is more significant than personal catharsis in motivating violence; that individual affect is refigured collectively as "political affect;" and that varied discursive forms, such as vows, songs, and noise mediate the ways in which people put grief behind them and resume their lives. Indeed, such discursive forms appear to be generative sites for violence and solace.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed2005

[Medieval scenes of ritual circumcision as a reflection of sociopolitical circumstances].

Ritual circumcision in males is regarded as one of the oldest surgical procedures. Whereas their medieval illustrations are mostly interpreted within a religious context, this study tries to prove the influence of the political and social situation of the above-mentioned period.Selected iconography of ritual male circumcision in the Middle Ages from Germany, France, Italy, and the Byzantine Empire was critically examined. Special attention was paid to the stained glass windows recently returned to St. Mary's Church in Frankfurt/Oder, where circumcision of the so-called Antichrist is also shown. Up to now we could not find any medical historical information about this subject. Clerical fine art of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries shows more frequently than before illustrations of ritual circumcision, which evidently demonstrate the political, economic, and social tensions and controversies of that period. In many cases this iconography indicates a rejection of this old Jewish tradition and its confessors. Also the stained glass image of the Antichrist posthetomy could be interpreted as criticism or aversion.This study expands our approach to medieval illustrations of ritual circumcision that have hitherto mostly been interpreted in religious terms. The influence of changing political and social situations in the Middle Ages is evident.

Byzantium↗
PubMed2006

"Seeing the difference": an interdisciplinary approach to death, dying, humanities, and medicine.

This essay explores how strategies integral to inquiry in the humanities provide insights into developing an interdisciplinary approach to studies of death and dying that will be relevant to medical practice as well as to humanistic study. The author asks how we can produce new modes of knowledge in an area where "knowing" is highly problematized and argues that while a putative field of death and dying studies must include a range of disciplinary approaches it must also account for lived, subjective experience and the ways that we, as individuals and as a culture, create meaning.

Attitude to Death↗
PubMed2026

Culture, Psychiatry and Epigenetics.

Regarding the methodology of ethnopsychiatric research, for example, on the Vietnamese Mo Mường's burial rituals or the health-promoting and healing effects of the Chinese Tujia dances, three different approaches can be distinguished: phenomenological-descriptive methods, hermeneutic-interpretive techniques and studies on underlying mechanisms such as hypnotherapeutic or neuroendocrine dynamics. Since epigenetics has shown that cultural and artistic experiences can influence gene expression and genetic functioning, even across generations, the article argues for greater consideration of epigenetics in medical anthropology and ethnopsychiatry. Epigenetic dynamics can significantly influence health promoting and healing effects of rituals in ethnic traditions and determine an individual's responsiveness to such practices. In this context, the interplay between genetics and epigenetics, various concepts of the collective unconscious, transcultural psychiatry, culturally sensitive arts therapies, and issues of migration and transcultural identities are discussed.

Humans↗