ABSTRACT
Over the past twenty years, medical anthropologists and cross-cultural psychiatrists have greatly advanced our knowledge of indigenous healing systems. Psychotherapists and biomedical physicians write about indigenous healing from the standpoint of how it compares and contrasts with their discipline. Popular health care practices are of a very wide variety and include health maintenance and curative interventions, of which the more commonly utilized are diet; special foods; local herbs and other traditional and contemporary indigenous medicines; massage; blistering and other manipulative techniques; exercise; changes in life style habits; use of biomedical drugs and apparatuses; symbolic interventions, ranging from charms and amulets to prayer, healing rites, and including various kinds of talking therapies. Care in the popular sector is importantly influenced by economic, political, and cultural constraints.
