Patients and Healers in the Context of Culture: An Exploration of the Borderland Between Anthropology, Medicine and Psychiatry (Comparative studies of health systems & medical care)

It is a good starting point for physicians and scientists who are stuck in the scientific box to take a look at what different traditions have to offer patients and far enough away from home to avoid too many irritations about practices that are "not scientific".

Thought provoking, a little dated, but written by one of the most respected authors in the field who has avoided becoming polarized in his analysis of medicine and psychiatry (as they relate to culture) throughout his distinguished career and who is never boring.


A milestone in Medical Anthropology. Seminal.   November 20, 2001
5 out of 5 found this review helpful

This book compares the differing client-patient relationships enacted in consultations with between western physicians, traditional chinese physicians and ingigenous shamans in Taiwan in the 60's and 70's. It is an absolutely seminal milestone in medical anthropology as a then emerging discipline and will be much enjoyed by all thinking people. Human, thought provoking and rigorous, you'll want to keep this one. Psychosomatic complaints he found (he is Prof in anthropology at Harvard and psychiatrist too)are best treated by the shamans. Any complementary therapists wanting to academically back their practice should read it.