ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author provides an account of how one Christian Ayurvedic psychiatrist in Kerala, Dr. Joseph John, reinterpreted and reclaimed spiritual therapy as an important component of Ayurvedic psychiatry. This analysis of one figure "from the margins" of institutionalized Ayurvedic psychiatry highlights negotiations in everyday healing practice that are obfuscated by homogenizing narratives of the "scientization" of institutionalized Ayurveda. Practitioners and teachers of institutionalized Ayurvedic psychiatry in Kottakkal were the gatekeepers of professional institutional Ayurvedic psychiatry. The separation of medicine and religion is part of institutional Ayurveda including institutionalized Ayurvedic psychiatry. Using the case of Anita, the author analyses how Dr. John understands, translates and treats depression and how depression becomes multiple in his treatment regime. She argues that it is these multiple authorities and the multiple or distributed healing agency that allows depression to become multiple in Dr. John's diagnostic and therapeutic practice.
