The Ethnomedical Approach
The ethnomedical approach can sometimes be thought of as a study of a culture’s “traditional” approach to disease and illness. Diseases are recognized and treated differently depending on the particular cultural context it is viewed in. The ethnomedical approach can be used to explain health modules, how people go about seeking treatment, the healing process itself and a comparison of health systems. Certain cultures are more focused around technology and “hard” science---therefore, one would expect the healthcare in that culture to be focused around the same values. On the other hand, some cultures are held together by well-respected leaders and strongly believe in living off the land. These values would also be reflected in the way the people of that culture seek and obtain healthcare.
The ethnomedical approach can sometimes be thought of as a study of a culture’s “traditional” approach to disease and illness. Diseases are recognized and treated differently depending on the particular cultural context it is viewed in. The ethnomedical approach can be used to explain health modules, how people go about seeking treatment, the healing process itself and a comparison of health systems. Certain cultures are more focused around technology and “hard” science---therefore, one would expect the healthcare in that culture to be focused around the same values. On the other hand, some cultures are held together by well-respected leaders and strongly believe in living off the land. These values would also be reflected in the way the people of that culture seek and obtain healthcare.
Culture
Culture is also very important when it comes to studying a disease. Different cultures regard different things as being a disease. A birth defect in one culture might be seen as a severe deformity and lead to a life of alienation for the child whereas in another culture it could be viewed as a “sign from God” that this child is a “chosen one” and should be highly respected. With certain cultures come certain diseases. These diseases are referred to as “Culture Bound Syndromes”. It is likely that common diseases such as heart attacks are found throughout many cultures, certain cultural practices can indeed lead to the formation of certain culture bound syndromes. OCD is especially interesting to study through a cultural lens because its “symptoms seem to merge more closely with normal human behavior and cultural traditions than those of most other mental illnesses” (Pallanti 2008). In one regard, OCD can actually be thought of as “exaggerated maternal love”. There might be similarities in the brain circuits that lead mothers constantly checking on their children and caring for them and the circuits that cause patients with OCD to constantly wash their hands and check to make sure their door is locked. OCD has other interesting cultural connections as well. “Magical thinking” is an accent cultural term for those who were believed to be able to assert control over others through rituals. This parallels the rituals that are present in OCD. “Magical thinking, an ancestor of science in most cultures, cognitively represents the concept of thought-action fusion. One of the roles of magical thinking is the formation of fear of and responsibility for causing harm to others” (Pallanti 2008). This therefore demonstrates just how important it is to view a disease through a cultural lens. In America, OCD is usually viewed as an anxiety disorder. In other cultures around the world, OCD could be regarded as somewhat of a power. One with OCD symptoms could really possess “magical thinking” and have the ability to help others through rituals. |
These are all OCD memes that people see on the internet everyday. They play on the common stigma that OCD just means a person wants order in their life. OCD is actually much more of a complex problem than society in general makes it out to be. The American culture might just have OCD all wrong (We Know Memes 2014).
|
Kleinman's Explanatory Models of Health
Kleinman's explanatory models of health describe a three-pronged approach to dealing with disease. Information about a disease could be derived from the popular sector, such as advice from friends and family, the folk sector, such as sacred or secular healers, and the professional sector such as medical doctors and paraprofessionals.
Popular
The popular sector is the sector where the disease is usually first recognized. OCD is a fairly well known disease within American society and many people jokingly say that they have “OCD when it comes to _______”. This term is used in the popular sector’s lingo as a synonym for keeping something neat. It is common to hear “I have OCD when it comes to keeping my room clean” or “I’m so OCD about having to wear matching socks”. As seen above, there are many popular internet memes that use OCD as their subject. These memes contain stigmas about OCD that are usually half-truths---at the most. This kind of social media negatively impacts people that are actually suffering from OCD and fear that confiding their symptoms in others might lead to their friends not taking them seriously. Most people don’t realize that this disease is much more complex that having a sense of order. A sense of order is definitely part of the disease but there are much more complicated symptoms than that which include “magical thinking”, or the belief that thoughts such as, if you count the letters in a word and it turns out to be an even number, then someone’s life will be saved. This thought and action have absolutely no correlation, but in the mind of someone with OCD they most definitely do. It is this kind of behavior that can lead to one seeking help from the popular sector. A person might start to describe their symptoms to a friend or family member who might encourage them to “Google it” to see what is going on. WebMD or Wikipedia might be a source of self-help.
Folk
After exhausting the help of the popular sector, an OCD patient might move towards treatment in the folk sector. This usually includes treatment from a person that shares the same cultural values of society as the patient and the approach is usually holistic. A folk healer might provide natural remedies to help cure the patient. Folk healers are now treating intestinal health as a way to cure OCD. Serotonin greatly affects mood and the amount of serotonin in your body is due in part to your diet. It is thought that improving ones intestinal health with also helps relieve them of OCD symptoms. Folk healers recommend “cutting out all potential inflammation causing foods, such as gluten, wheat, dairy, and sugar (Akullian 2014). Natural herbs such as St. John’s Wort, valerian root, and passionflower have been used to treat anxiety and depression as well. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is also an option when it comes to remedies that are not based on prescription drugs. (Akullian 2014). A combination of these methods is used to treat the mind, body, and soul and is provided through either a sacred or a secular healer.
Kleinman's explanatory models of health describe a three-pronged approach to dealing with disease. Information about a disease could be derived from the popular sector, such as advice from friends and family, the folk sector, such as sacred or secular healers, and the professional sector such as medical doctors and paraprofessionals.
Popular
The popular sector is the sector where the disease is usually first recognized. OCD is a fairly well known disease within American society and many people jokingly say that they have “OCD when it comes to _______”. This term is used in the popular sector’s lingo as a synonym for keeping something neat. It is common to hear “I have OCD when it comes to keeping my room clean” or “I’m so OCD about having to wear matching socks”. As seen above, there are many popular internet memes that use OCD as their subject. These memes contain stigmas about OCD that are usually half-truths---at the most. This kind of social media negatively impacts people that are actually suffering from OCD and fear that confiding their symptoms in others might lead to their friends not taking them seriously. Most people don’t realize that this disease is much more complex that having a sense of order. A sense of order is definitely part of the disease but there are much more complicated symptoms than that which include “magical thinking”, or the belief that thoughts such as, if you count the letters in a word and it turns out to be an even number, then someone’s life will be saved. This thought and action have absolutely no correlation, but in the mind of someone with OCD they most definitely do. It is this kind of behavior that can lead to one seeking help from the popular sector. A person might start to describe their symptoms to a friend or family member who might encourage them to “Google it” to see what is going on. WebMD or Wikipedia might be a source of self-help.
Folk
After exhausting the help of the popular sector, an OCD patient might move towards treatment in the folk sector. This usually includes treatment from a person that shares the same cultural values of society as the patient and the approach is usually holistic. A folk healer might provide natural remedies to help cure the patient. Folk healers are now treating intestinal health as a way to cure OCD. Serotonin greatly affects mood and the amount of serotonin in your body is due in part to your diet. It is thought that improving ones intestinal health with also helps relieve them of OCD symptoms. Folk healers recommend “cutting out all potential inflammation causing foods, such as gluten, wheat, dairy, and sugar (Akullian 2014). Natural herbs such as St. John’s Wort, valerian root, and passionflower have been used to treat anxiety and depression as well. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is also an option when it comes to remedies that are not based on prescription drugs. (Akullian 2014). A combination of these methods is used to treat the mind, body, and soul and is provided through either a sacred or a secular healer.
Professional
In the American culture the most frequent sector of healthcare that is utilized for the treatment of OCD is the professional sector. This sector consists of legally sanctioned individuals such as health professionals and paraprofessionals who use biomedicine as the basis of their knowledge and treatment. They are usually on an elevated social status compared to their patients. Doctors usually prescribe antidepressants in order to try and relieve a patient from OCD symptoms. These usually include drugs such as Luvox, Prozac, Zoloft, Paxil, Celexa, Anafranil, Lexapro, and Effexor. These drugs do have side effects and one has to weigh the risks versus the benefits when deciding to take the drugs. Many patients have seen a significant improvement after taking the drugs for a while and receiving Cognitive Behavioral Therapy alongside medication (Jenike, 2012). |
Antidepressants such as Prozac block the reuptake of serotonin. Serotonin is highly responsible for mood and increasing the amount of serotonin in the body has been related to the lessening of OCD symptoms (Backgrounders 2014).
|
The Three Bodies
The body can be regarded in three forms which all lend a special lens through which OCD can be studied. The individual body is centered on how the soul, psyche, and matter are interrelated. This is easily understood when it comes to OCD because the obsessions and compulsions are disorders that affect the soul and psyche. The matter in which these problems are held is the brain. Together, these three entities combine to create an individual “vessel” that a person calls a body. This can contain a very personal view of an individual and contain thoughts and feelings only known to them.
There is also the social body. This is the body that is a natural reflection of a symbol that contains certain values and ideologies. In the diagnosis and treatment of OCD, the body when viewed socially, can be seen as a “broken machine” for example in western society. There is pathology inside the body and doctors are the “mechanics” employed to put it back together. Their tools might consist of antidepressants and cognitive behavioral therapy. In other cultures, the patient’s body could be seen as a “temple” that has been invaded by evil spirits who are causing the obsessions and compulsions. One might try to rid a person of these spirits through rituals or ceremonies so that the person can reclaim their body and their spirit as their own.
The third way a body can be visualized is as the body politic. This idea is centered on health as a population wide goal. There might be certain cultural, political and moral ideologies, which lead to a person receiving a proper diagnosis and treatment for their OCD. In westernized cultures, it is sometimes hard for a person to go about getting treatment for their OCD. Most treatment is in the form of biomedicine and one must have adequate insurance or money to cover the cost of drugs. There also is a stigma about receiving care for their mental illness and patients might be fearful of the cultural retributions they might face. All these factors could hinder a person receiving the care that they so desperately need.
The body can be regarded in three forms which all lend a special lens through which OCD can be studied. The individual body is centered on how the soul, psyche, and matter are interrelated. This is easily understood when it comes to OCD because the obsessions and compulsions are disorders that affect the soul and psyche. The matter in which these problems are held is the brain. Together, these three entities combine to create an individual “vessel” that a person calls a body. This can contain a very personal view of an individual and contain thoughts and feelings only known to them.
There is also the social body. This is the body that is a natural reflection of a symbol that contains certain values and ideologies. In the diagnosis and treatment of OCD, the body when viewed socially, can be seen as a “broken machine” for example in western society. There is pathology inside the body and doctors are the “mechanics” employed to put it back together. Their tools might consist of antidepressants and cognitive behavioral therapy. In other cultures, the patient’s body could be seen as a “temple” that has been invaded by evil spirits who are causing the obsessions and compulsions. One might try to rid a person of these spirits through rituals or ceremonies so that the person can reclaim their body and their spirit as their own.
The third way a body can be visualized is as the body politic. This idea is centered on health as a population wide goal. There might be certain cultural, political and moral ideologies, which lead to a person receiving a proper diagnosis and treatment for their OCD. In westernized cultures, it is sometimes hard for a person to go about getting treatment for their OCD. Most treatment is in the form of biomedicine and one must have adequate insurance or money to cover the cost of drugs. There also is a stigma about receiving care for their mental illness and patients might be fearful of the cultural retributions they might face. All these factors could hinder a person receiving the care that they so desperately need.
Bibliography
Mika Akullian. “Natural Remedies for Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.” Answers. Last modified in 2014. http://healing.answers.com/emotional-health/natural-remedies-for-obsessive-compulsive-disorder
Michael Jenike. “Medicine for OCD.” International OCD Foundation. Last modified in 2012. http://www.ocfoundation.org/medsummary.aspx
Stefano Pallanti. Transcultural Observations of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. American Journal of Psychiatry 165, no. 2 (2008): 169-170.
http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/article.aspx?articleID=99467
"OCD Memes." We Know Memes. Last modified in 2014. http://weknowmemes.com/tag/ocd-meme/
"Drugs Alter Transmission of Impulses Across the Synapse." Backgrounders. Last modified in 2014.
http://www.txtwriter.com/backgrounders/Drugaddiction/drugs2.html
Mika Akullian. “Natural Remedies for Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.” Answers. Last modified in 2014. http://healing.answers.com/emotional-health/natural-remedies-for-obsessive-compulsive-disorder
Michael Jenike. “Medicine for OCD.” International OCD Foundation. Last modified in 2012. http://www.ocfoundation.org/medsummary.aspx
Stefano Pallanti. Transcultural Observations of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. American Journal of Psychiatry 165, no. 2 (2008): 169-170.
http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/article.aspx?articleID=99467
"OCD Memes." We Know Memes. Last modified in 2014. http://weknowmemes.com/tag/ocd-meme/
"Drugs Alter Transmission of Impulses Across the Synapse." Backgrounders. Last modified in 2014.
http://www.txtwriter.com/backgrounders/Drugaddiction/drugs2.html