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Date: Mon, 08 Jul 2002 08:39:37 -0000
To: agathiyar@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: Temple in TN cures mania
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--- In agathiyar@y..., "Bala Pillai"
> Jairam & Friends,
>
> Not making a value judgment here. Just stating what I find to be
true again and again.
>
> Below is mainly (a) the placebo effect at work and secondarily
Dear Bala
You are making a vast oversimplification by calling it placebo
effect. Both pschiatric problems and cures are culture specific. For
example, hysteria which was taken up by Sigmund Freud was very
prevalent in the sexually repressive Vienna where he lived. Hence
Freud's methods concentrated on sexual repression and derepression.
Each psyciatric method is effective only for a certain range of
pschiatric disorders. Most forms of treatment have been inefective
against schizophrenia, that is why pharmocological methods are
developed against schizophrenia and it has been effecive to a certain
extent, but not all the time
As to why a patient chooses certain type of treatment and what are
the dynamics of treatment is a complex subject and still no one has
definite answers. At the least, the patient has to trust the "doctor"
and what is called transference has to take place. That is, the
patient transfers all the psychic energy on the doctor and is
receptive to ideas from him/her. From there, both the treatment and
the eventual cure, if there is one, proceed.
Each society has it's owm major pschiatric problems. A person brought
up in a tribal society will have his own problems and he may not be
cured by a member of American asociation of Psychologists. I put the
doctor is quote-unquote because the doctor may be a witch doctor
getting into a trance after dancing for 2 hours or he may have a
number of degrees attached to his name and siting behind a large
mohogany table or may be a temple priest in Tamilnadu chanting Rudram
or some other verses in Sanskrit or other languages. A tribal who is
bothered by malevolent spirits may be cured by his witch doctor who
beats him on his knee with a broom dipped in cock's blood. Why do you
call it a placebo effect when other western methods may be a complete
failure on this tribal.
There are other factors like how do you define the state of cure and
who is to finance the treatment. many of the western escpecially
Fruedian methods were time consuming and money consuming processes.
Pschiatrists don't work for nothing and they are highly paid. Who is
going to finance a man in India suffering from psycho-somatic
problems? Are the "rationalists" who think temple cure is placebo
going to finance his cure and spend few thousand dollars out of their
pocket. If a man in India believes that going to a temple and doing
the trances required there cures him of his sickness and it really
happens and he is back to his work leading a productive work, what
more you want?
In pschiatric curing, as in other walks of life, we must follow what
works.
