This exceptional book responds to the intense current interest in defining and understanding the contribution of traditional medical knowledge and the intervention techniques of traditional healers to national mental health services around the world.

* First book on traditional healing and transcultural psychiatry

* Delineates the knowledge and clinical skills of traditional healers from diverse cultural areas around the world

* Describes the clinical and social roles of traditional healers in their communities and the challenges of constructing national mental health programs that include traditional knowledge and healing techniques

* Assesses issues on efficacy and safety of traditional healers' interventions

* Includes contributions from leading scholars in this field from South Africa, India, New Zealand, Andorra, Canada, USA, Italy, and the Quichua and Sioux Lakota Nations of South and North America

* Theme of culture versus science: The psychiatrists discuss the effects of local culture upon mental health and consider the impact, benefit and incorporation of traditional healing as a tool for the clinical psychiatrist

* Easy to use with case studies and vignettes throughout and a glossary to explain any technical terms

Psychiatrists and Traditional Healers: Unwitting Partners in Global Mental Health is a valuable addition to the bookshelf of a wide array of mental health trainees, researchers and professionals interested in cultural psychiatry in general and the role of traditional healers around the world.

Mario Incayawar, recipient of the John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship 2006, is Director of 'Runajambi' - Institute for the Study of Quichua Culture and Health.

Ron Wintrob is President of the WPA Section on Transcultural Psychiatry.

Up to 85 percent of the world's population relies on traditional healers and medicines to meet their health care needs. In Uganda, for example, the ratio of traditional healers to population is 1:200, contrasting dramatically with biomedically trained health professionals, for which the ratio is 1:20,000. In the Andes of South America, there are no psychiatric or mental health services available to the Indigenous Peoples who therefore depend entirely on traditional healers, family and community support to cope with their mental health problems and to relieve their psychological distress.

Psychiatrists and Traditional Healers focuses on the significant contribution of traditional healers to the wellbeing of most of the world's population, and considers the role of these unwitting partners in global mental health.

• This book presents original research data, clinical experiences, case vignettes, and pilot psychiatric collaborative programs between traditional healers and psychiatrists in countries around the world
• All chapters highlight, in various ways, the unanticipated and often unrecognized contributions of traditional healers and traditional psychiatric knowledge to global mental health
• Features a Foreword by Dr Goffredo Bartocci, President-elect of the World Association of Cultural Psychiatry

Psychiatrists and Traditional Healers: Unwitting Partners in Global Mental Health makes fascinating reading for clinicians, researchers, community mental health practitioners, educators, and mental health policy makers, as well those interested in cultural psychiatry and the role of traditional healers in mental health.

Foreword by Raymond H. Prince xi

Foreword by Goffredo Bartocci xiii

Salutation by Juan E. Mezzich xv

Preface xvii

Contributors xix

1 Overview: Looking Toward the Future of Shared Knowledge and Healing Practices 1
Ronald Wintrob

1.1 Introductory Remarks 2

1.2 Complementary and Alternative Medicine 2

1.3 The US National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine 2

1.4 Botanicals, Biological Products and their Commercial Development 3

1.5 The Medical, Medicinal and Botanical Knowledge and the Intellectual Property Rights of Indigenous Peoples 3

1.6 Supernatural Determinism, Faith Healing and Exorcism 4

1.7 Faith Healing 5

1.8 Curanderismo and Candomble 7

1.9 Toward the Integration of Medical and Traditional Healing; Case Examples from the Americas 8

1.10 Concluding Comments 11

2 Legitimacy and Contextual Issues in Traditional Lakota Sioux Healing 13
Jeffrey A. Henderson

2.1 Introduction 13

2.2 Definitions 15

2.3 Research on Indigenous Healing in the Americas 15

2.4 Traditional Lakota Sioux Healing 16

2.5 Renewed Interest in Traditional Medicine 16

2.6 Rephrasing a Typical Question 17

2.7 Issues with Legitimacy 18

2.8 Reimbursement for Traditional Healing Services in the United States: What are we Getting Ourselves into? 20

Conclusion 21

References 22

3 Doctor-Patient Relationship in Psychiatry: Traditional Approaches in India Versus Western Approaches 25
Vijoy K. Varma and Nitin Gupta

3.1 Introduction 25

3.2 Psychotherapy: Definitions and Common Concepts 26

3.3 Western Models of the Doctor-Patient Relationship 27

3.4 Traditional Models of the Doctor-Patient Relationship 28

3.5 Psycho-Cultural Variables Relevant to the Doctor-Patient Relationship 29

Conclusion 35

4 South American Indigenous Knowledge of Psychotropics 37
Sioui Maldonado Bouchard

4.1 Introduction 37

4.2 Definitions 38

4.3 Three Indigenous Peoples' Medicinal Plants: Quinine, Coca and Ayahuasca 39

4.4 Legal Issues 41

Conclusion 49

Notes 49

References 50

5 Psychiatric Case Identification Skills of Yachactaita (Quichua Healers of the Andes) 53
Mario Incayawar

5.1 Introduction 53

5.2 The Quichua People 54

5.3 Research Methods 55

5.4 Comparison of Quichua and Western Diagnosis 56

5.5 The Western Clinical Diagnosis 60

5.6 Diagnostic Ability of Yachactaitas 61

5.7 Traditional Healers' Diagnostic Abilities in Other Societies 62

5.8 Clinical, Research and Health Policy Implications 62

Conclusion 63

Acknowledgment 64

References 64

6 A Western Psychiatrist among the Shuar People of Ecuador 67
Joan Obiols-Llandrich

6.1 Introduction 67

6.2 The Shuar Culture 68

6.3 Shuar Hallucinogenic Use 69

6.4 The Survey 69

6.5 Previous Research in the Shuar Area 70

6.6 First Steps in the Shuar Territory: Collaborating as a Psychiatrist 71

6.7 Witchcraft and Disease 72

6.8 The Wishin (the Shuar Shaman) 72

6.9 The Natem Experience 74

Conclusion 76

References 76

7 The Awakening of Collaboration between Quichua Healers and Psychiatrists in the Andes 79
Lise Bouchard

7.1 Introduction 79

7.2 Pervasive Social Exclusion 80

7.3 Health Disparities and Health Care Inequities 80

7.4 The Quichua Response: Jambihuasi 81

7.5 Going Further: The Foundation of Runajambi 88

Conclusion 90

Notes 90

References 91

8 Factors Associated with Use of Traditional Healers in American Indians and Alaska Natives 93
Jeffrey A. Henderson

8.1 Introduction 94

8.2 How we Assessed Traditional Healer Use 94

8.3 Results - Scope of Traditional Healer Use 97

8.4 Discussion 100

Acknowledgments 105

References 105

9 Re-Kindling the Fire - Healing Historical Trauma in Native American Prison Inmates 107
L. Tyler Barlow…