ABSTRACT
The Biomedical Model: The typical biomedical model characteristic of Western psychiatry is dominated by a biomedical explanation for mental illness, with an emphasis on the diagnosis of symptoms which are treated primarily through medical interventions. Here, General Practitioners (GPs) act as gatekeepers to psychiatric services. The ‘Free Market’ Model: Alternative (Faith/Spiritual and Traditional) healers play important roles alongside biomedical professionals in the ‘free market’ model found in the developing world. Often, a network of personal contacts is exhausted in this model before contact is made with professional services. The consideration of a variety of treatment options in this model aligns with the multiple and sometimes ‘conflicting’ beliefs that are held as potential causes of illnesses. This ‘cognitive tolerance’ is reinforced by the holistic conception of human beings, with the health and well-being of people attributable to immediate or distant social, spiritual, and natural factors. Alternative institutional care could be categorised into syncretic religious (spiritual or faith) healers and traditional native doctors. In both, diagnoses are normally tailored to meet the expectations of the native clientele. Faith Healers adopt Christian or integration of Christian and traditional healing methods which include religious rituals. Traditional healing practices could also involve medical and non-medical procedures, including the complexity of rituals. Traditional healers utter incantations to potentiate medicines.
