On Health and Healing Flashcards
Definition of “professional sector” of medical system
the professionally organised and regulated healing professions; usually dominant medical systems in different social/cultural contexts
e.g. Western biomedicine, Chinese medicine
Definition of “traditional/folk sector” of medical system
the non-professional and non-bureaucratic sector (i.e. not regulated by governments or professional organisations); can be sacred (acknowledgement of supernatural forces) or secular (uses herbs etc.)
e.g. Sámi healing, in which knowledge can be acquired in any number of ways including dreams, stories, instinct etc.
Definition of “popular sector” of medical system
medical choices based on popular culture (media, family, internet etc.) and sometimes religion
help-seeking process often starts with an individual health concern, and is oftentimes followed up with friends and/or family members
Definition of “medical syncretism”
the simultaneous use of different medical systems (i.e. combining disparate approaches to medicine)
part of the “interpretatively volatile” process of the illness experience, during which people search chaotically and messily for answers and potentials solutions to their illness
