ABSTRACT
The theme of this chapter concerns the practices of traditional, indigenous healing, especially as they are applied to the alleviation of psychic distress, reduction of anxiety, and restoration and enhancement of personal well-being and self-efficacy. Our concern is with the modes of intervention that are based on oral tradition rather than on a historic, codified body of knowledge. As such, the indigenous modes of treatment stand in contrast not only to the modern empirically based and scientifically derived corpus of information but also to the historic Western healing systems going back to the contributions of Hippocrates and Galen. Similarly, traditions of Indian, Chinese, and Arabic ethnomedicine, embodied as they are in written texts, will remain outside of the scope of our consideration.
