Healing Practices in Psychiatric Patients1

Psychiatry for long time has looked upon traditional healing practices wi th an at t i tude of contempt. As a mat te r of fact, the further one got away from such healing practices the bet ter was considered the growth of mental heal th at a centre or in a country. Consequently, for the past several decades it was an anti-psychiatry gesture to consider, evaluate or compare the traditional practices wi th those being provided by the modern well t rained practitioners of psychiatry. I t is only in the past 5 to 7 years that there has resulted a disillusionment in regrad to a very high degree of investment in psychotherapies with a proportionate minimal output so far as results are concerned. Psychotherapists have functioned in a cloak of secrecy and have in general not subjected themselves or their techniques to any major scrutiny. There has, thus, arisen a big question as to the exclusive usefulness of psychotherapies in the day to day practice of psychiatry. Wha t today is known as folk, faith or traditional healing and is the current theme of our paper, seems to be int imately related to the magico-religious medicine which has been practiced during the Atharva Vedic period. While the practice of pu re medicine by professional medical men had already been going on, chronologically, the empericorational system of Ayurveda appears to have been formulated much later than the original vedic medicine. As the religion of Atharva Veda is tha t of pr imit ive man , magic seems to have eclipsed everything and the divinity was supreme. Accordingly, the treatment methods of vedic period appear 7'seudo-scientific in the light of modern system of knowledge. However, in terms of modern psychology, guilt, suggestion, projection and rituals among others seem to underlie the magico-religious or the traditional heal ing. Thus , we may unders tand how ceremonial peni tence ( pray-ascit ta ) oblation ( B a l i ) , incantat ions ( m a n t r a s ) and propi t ia tory rites bring abou t a favourable response. Wha t perhaps is of greatest crucial significance, however, is the fact tha t all these Indian concepts are fastly imbued with the Indian culture and due to its ea^y palat ibi l i ty as communicability, these therapeut ic approaches may be of some value in the management of psychiatric disorders as observed in this country. Hence it requires to be worked out with utmost sincerity.