The role of spirituality in understanding and treating mental illnesses has had an increasing significance, even with the growing popularity of more scientifically recognized therapies. The difficulties facing spiritual cures stem from the wide variation and historical difficulty in clearly labeling and understanding the diverse cures (Kirmayer, 2004). Widely defined as the interconnection, inner peace and wholeness, coupled with a deep reverence for plant, animal and human life, spirituality and spiritual healing draw on the perceived power of the ultimate realities of the universe. Curanderismo is founded on multiple cultural and religious beliefs, premises and values that are widely implicit but fixed and commonly unconscious beliefs of the disease causes as well as their respective treatments. These beliefs are in turn determined by varied, but clearly differentiated views of the world on lasting interpersonal experiences in the respective communities, which provide the context for the therapy and healing. It is critical to understand however, that this is not simply a therapy steeped in superstition, but one that is shaped by a coherent view of the world and medicine, with deep and widespread roots. The biggest obstacle to its understanding and relevance in the treatment of mental conditions largely stems from the failure to recognize its role as a viable therapy.
Curanderismo refers to a folk healing therapy, involving spiritual prayers, healing rituals, herbal medicine, psychic healing and massages, commonly practiced by Hispanic-American societies in Latin America, Southwestern the United States as well as elsewhere across the Spanish speaking world (Kirmayer, 2004). Curanderismo draws on Greek mythology and humoral medical practices that re-emerged at the height of the Spanish Renaissance and made popular by Latin language translations of Hippocrates and Galen’s ideas on diseases and healing. Years of practices and cultural changes have as well had an impact on Curanderismo, with European and medieval witchcraft; homeopathy, ancient Arabic medical and healing practices as well as Judeo-Christian traditions having a critical influence on the practices.
In addition, other influences on the Curanderismo have included biblical practices, scientific medical practices, spiritual beliefs as well as psychic phenomena. The Spanish colonization of Mexico saw the spread of the Curanderismo culture, which has since then, been widely practiced across Latin America as a popular, alternative therapy and cure. Its popularity is largely because of the fact that it is believed to treat spiritual illnesses, such as those caused by evil spirits that are however, not recognized by conventional medicine. Conventional cures are based on empiricism and rationality, and these elements are as well common to Curanderismo, which has equally adopted multiple observation and diagnostic procedures. The definitions and perceptions of illnesses in Latino folklore are such that patients seek treatment progressively, depending on the severity and persistence of the illnesses. Home treatment, which is the first, relies on neighborhood traditional healers (Kirmayer, Narasiah, & et al, 2011). If the illness persists, then the patient will seek the services of a folk curer, in the belief that the disease is a punishment imposed by the spiritual world. Curanderismo is the last resort, in the event the patient believes that illness has supernatural causes. Patients believe that traditional therapies only take care of some aspects of varying diseases, while others are either without cure or may only be cured by conventional medicine. Diseases are generally believed as either unnatural or natural in their nature. If illnesses persist and patients are forced to seek the services of curanderos, it is customary to those healers within their own families as against those from outside the family. This is therapeutically significant, not least because healers within the patient’s family have an advantage in understanding the patient’s mental and physical background, history, causes of illnesses and possible cures.
Assumptions & Philosophical Premises
The beliefs and popularity of Curanderismo stem from its ability to cure psychological, physiological as well as social maladjustments, because of the increased opportunity for the therapists to provide social diagnosis for the problems. There are eight different philosophical premises and concepts, which lead to conscious or unconscious predisposition of the Latino community to conduct themselves in predictable ways.
(a) These philosophical underpinnings include the belief that human body and mind are inseparable, which makes emotional illnesses have a relationship to the physical well being of the patient. Physical impulses result into the production of excessive bile, which results in feelings of rage and sadness, which further breeds multiple other mental problems, which do in turn cause further physiological difficulties.
(b) In addition, Curanderismo is founded on the philosophy that harmony and balance of social, emotional and physical aspects of the individual is critical to ensuring the well-being of an individual. This derives from Hippocrates and Aztec Spanish ideas on humors and notions. According to this philosophy, an imbalance among different aspects of an individual’s physiological and emotional aspects results in illness and the treatment involves the restoration of the right balance.
(c) Further, the patients are thought to be innocent victims of evil forces that exist in their respective environments. Patients bear no blame for their conditions, instead, intrusions of external forces that disrupt the internal order and balance bear the blame for the illnesses. This is often the explanation for external intrusions occasioned by witchcraft and other evil influences within the environment, which explains why patients must be accorded unconditional care and love for their misfortunes.
(d) The soul and body are separable, which describes the human being’s relationship to superhuman forces, with a belief in the fact that the human soul could potentially be lost or that the human soul can travel during sleep. This premise offers the role played by religion in the treatment of mental illnesses as well as other physical illnesses, with the understanding of the sole and higher spiritual forces resulting from Christian dogma, psyche or multiple other unconscious connections with the universe (Kirmayer, 2004).
(e) Treatments must involve the participation of the patients’ family, who must offer culturally patterned obligations and roles to support the sick. The participation of families in therapies is however, exercised with care, in view of the complex family relationships
(f) The patients must be re-socialized, since they become deviants by virtue of their illnesses, and as such, they must re-integrated back into their communities and families
(g) Interpenetration of supernatural and natural universes, which is related to the earlier premise of the separate-ability of the soul form the body. Under Curanderismo, the human soul, the spirits and gods can penetrate the two worlds.
(h) Healers must be warm and freely interact with the patients as well as their respective families.
Causes of Mental Illnesses
Curanderismo, which translates to holistic medicine, has three critical levels that include spiritual, mental and material. The material level lays emphasis on the physical objects that of cultural or religious symbolism, such as perfumes, candles, herbs and oils, while the spiritual level of this healing tradition involves mediums, through which healing takes place. The last level, the mental level of the tradition/therapy lays emphasis on healing through psychics. Alternatively, the levels have been thought to include a far wider and specific categorization i.e. bilis, empacho, mal aire, mala suerte, espartos, mal puestos and envidia. Billis results from fear or rage that results in increased production of bile, if the rage is repressed resulting in detrimental effects on the physical well being, while empacho stems from a physical blockage of one’s digestive tract, as a result of bad eating habits (Kirmayer, 2004).
Other forms of the conditions refer to different types of mental and spiritual illnesses. These include (i) commonly misunderstood mental ailments or (ii) illnesses caused by the evil eye or evil spirits. Others include vibratory states of bad expectations that affect humans; fright illnesses, which result from an individual’s inability to effectively deal with the haunting pasts that results in mentally hurtful, negative energies, coupled with the loss of human souls that effectively violates human biophoton fields, that gives rise to enormous sadness and mental problems. However, all the three levels are performed through carefully choreographed/patterned rituals meant to treat different diseases (Kirmayer, Narasiah, & et al, 2011). The Curanderismo healing is in great part, founded on the belief that curanderos (the therapists) have special healing gifts, despite the fact that the majority of the healers obtain their skills through years of apprenticeship.
According to this healing tradition, mental illnesses start with incredibly traumatic events, which are then perpetuated and reinforced further by the successive accumulation of other traumas. The affected individual experiences these emotional and physical traumas are different levels, and since the traumas remain and are held in the physical body, they result into the blockage of positive energies, coupled with both physical and mental illnesses. The blockages of positive energy results into the imbalance of different aspects of an individual, increases the concentration of bile in the body, which give rise to rage, depression, anxiety and other mental conditions. Spiritual illnesses stem from the violation of the spiritual aura, that makes the spirit to leave the body and healing may not occur unless the abuse stops and the spirit is allowed to into its previously held space. In addition, psychological and emotional problems may be caused by the entry of negative energy in a patient’s body (Kirmayer, Narasiah, & et al, 2011).
Treatment Practices, and Goal Setting
The practitioners of this form of treatment/therapy’s goal are not to heal the mentally ill patient, but to give treatment and therapy for the patients to heal. The healing process involves families, spirits and external forces, over which the therapists admit to have no control over.
Curanderismo is employed in the treatment of multiple physiological and mental illnesses, coupled with other spiritual difficulties facing individuals. These conditions, which are not specifically diagnosed, may include anxiety, schizophrenia, depression and drug addiction. The Curanderismo practitioners make use of body massages as a way to exorcise bad energies, spiritual and cultural rituals meant at exercising evil spirits and the external intrusions caused by the forces of witchcraft (Kirmayer, Narasiah, & et al, 2011). Body massage is used as a way of opening up blockages in the body, inorder to allow the negative energy to escape. The therapists on the other hand, use prayers and rituals in order to re-align the body and the soul while at once cleansing the abuse to the body and the environment, in order to allow the soul to return in the patient’s environment. In addition, the treatment practice includes
(a) Bonesetters who re-align dislocated joints and set bones
(b) Mid wives who are skilled in the traditional and natural delivery, coupled with the attendance to different female reproductive health matters
(c) Herbalists specialized in the use of chemicals, plants and scents, coupled with the preparation, cultivation and collection of the herbs
(d) Counselors who specialize in delivering intimate sessions with the patients
Endings and Treatment Evaluation
These forms of treatments involve the externalization of the causes of the diseases, which are diagnosed as having resulted from given external interpersonal, spiritual or social causes. Consequently, religious and cultural rituals, which are patterned to heal to remove the origins of the mental illness, are performed (Kirmayer, Narasiah, & et al, 2011). These rituals include the close involvement and support of the patient’s own family, who play a critical role in the healing process of the patient. In order to evaluate the efficacy of Curanderismo therapy it is critical to draw a line between psychological diseases and physical diseases. As regards the treatment of physiological/physical illnesses, there is a benefit from both the placebo effect of the therapy as well as the areal healing resulting from better reproductive health, body massage or bone setting etc. With regard to mental illnesses, the cultural construction of these diseases, make their causes and cures equally culturally determined, which when coupled with the close involvement of families and the belief of the patients in the therapy, there is a huge possibility, which has been scientifically established, of positive healing outcome from the exercise.
Use of self Awareness/Counter Transference Issues
The relationship between the patients and the Curanderismo therapists is strong and personal, with the therapists being required by the virtue of their profession to be involved and friendly. This gives a deep and intimate relationship with every patient that the therapist encounters, which results into an emotional overload for the therapist, while at once causing fear on the part of the patient, arising out of the possibility of the therapist using their intimate experience for their own ends. This is always a possibility, which is however limited among the Latino communities and Curanderismo therapists. This is not least because the treatment is under-pinned by strong personal, religious and cultural convictions, which are strong enough to outweigh any fears on the part of the patients of their exposure to possible exploitation. The traumatic experiences by the therapists are certain to affect them, regardless of their respective beliefs, especially if their patients fail to recover or even die, coupled with multiple other issues involved in the treatment of mental and other illnesses.
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