Explicitly dealing with the religious aspects of healing and healers, this unique and intriguing book examines illness, healing, and religion in cross-cultural perspective by looking at how sickness is understood and treated in a wide variety of cultures. Centered around three principle themes, the text: A) illustrates how crucial it is to frame illness in a meaningful context in every culture and how this process is almost always bound up with religious, spiritual, and moral concerns; B) shows how many beliefs, strategies, and practices that characterize traditional cultures also appear in Christianity, putting healing in the Christian tradition in a broad, rational context, and; C) discusses the continuities between traditional, explicitly religious, and modern medical cultures -- demonstrating that many features of modern scientific medicine are symbolic and ritualistic, and that many aspects and practices of modern medicine are similar to healing as seen in traditional, pre-scientific medical cultures. For those in the religious, anthropological and medical professions.

Dr. Harold Koenig opens a window on mental health, providing an unprecedented source of practical information about the relationship between religion and mental health. He examines how Christianity and other world religions deliver mental health services today, and he makes recommendations, based on research, expertise, and experience, for new programs to meet local needs. Meticulously researched and documented, Faith and Mental Health includes Research on the relationship between religion and positive emotions, psychiatric illnesses, and severe and persistent mental disorders Ways in which religion has influenced mental health historically, and how now and in the future it can be involved with mental health A comprehensive description and categorization of Christian and non-Christian faith-based organizations that provide mental health resources Resources for religious professionals and faith communities on how to design effective programs Presenting a combination of the history and current research of mental health and religion along with a thorough examination of faith-based organizations operating in the field, this book is a one-of-a-kind resource for the healthcare community; its valuable research and insights will benefit medical and religious professionals, and anyone concerned with the future of mental health care.

Recent academic and medical initiatives have highlighted the benefits of studying culturally embedded healing traditions that incorporate religious and philosophical viewpoints to better understand local and global healing phenomena. Capitalising on this trend, the present volume looks at the diverse models of healing that interplay with culture and religion in Asia. Cutting across several Asian regions from Hong Kong to mainland China, Tibet, India, and Japan, the book addresses healing from a broader perspective and reflects a fresh new outlook on the complexities of Asian societies and their approaches to health. In exploring the convergences and collisions a society must negotiate, it shows the emerging urgency in promoting multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary research on disease, religion and healing in Asia. Drawing on original fieldwork, contributors present their latest research on diverse local models of healing that occur when disease and religion meet in South and East Asian cultures. Revealing the symbiotic relationship of disease, religion and healing and their colliding values in Asia often undetected in healthcare research, the book draws attention to religious, political and social dynamics, issues of identity and ethics, practical and epistemological transformations, and analogous cultural patterns. It challenges the reader to rethink predominantly long-held Western interpretations of disease management and religion. Making a significant contribution to the field of transcultural medicine, religious studies in Asia as well as to a better understanding of public health in Asia as a whole, it will be of interest to students and scholars of Health Studies, Asian Religions and Philosophy.

Health and Healing in World Religions is a comprehensive introduction to the field that explores the research that links spirituality and well-being, including work with addiction and trauma. Each chapter includes an introduction to and summary of each tradition, questions at the conclusion, and boxes that highlight key ideas from the chapter using an example and interviews with medical professionals and other healers. Health and Healing in World Religions looks at cutting edge interfaces between spirituality and health such as mindfulness practices, addiction programmes, indigenous approaches to healing, traditional Chinese medicine, yoga and Ayurveda, and more. The text provides an overview of the research and practice all in one place and includes extensive bibliographies and resource guides for ease of reference. Health and Healing in World Religions is derived from over 20 years of teaching and research in health and healing and comes from an in-depth understanding of religion and spirituality. It is a vital guide to understanding cultural competency in the healing professions and the need to understand the cultural and spiritual traditions of clients.

One of the transformations facing health care in the twenty-first century is the safe, effective, and appropriate integration of conventional, or biomedical, care with complementary and alternative medical (CAM) therapies, such as acupuncture, chiropractic, massage therapy, herbal medicine, and spiritual healing. In Healing at the Borderland of Medicine and Religion, Michael H. Cohen discusses the need for establishing rules and standards to facilitate appropriate integration of conventional and CAM therapies. The kind of integrated health care many patients seek dwells in a borderland between the physical and the spiritual, between the quantifiable and the immeasurable, Cohen observes. But the present environment fails to present clear rules for clinicians regarding which therapies to recommend, accept, or discourage, and how to discuss patient requests regarding inclusion of such therapies. Focusing on the social, intellectual, and spiritual dimensions of integrative care and grounding his analysis in the attendant legal, regulatory, and institutional changes, Cohen provides a multidisciplinary examination of the shift to a more fluid, pluralistic health care environment.

Drawing on original fieldwork, this book develops a fresh methodological approach to the study of indigenous understandings of disease as possession, and looks at healing rituals in different South Asian cultural contexts. Contributors discuss the meaning of 'disease', 'possession' and 'healing' in relation to South Asian religions, including Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism and Sikhism, and how South Asians deal with the divine in order to negotiate health and wellbeing. The book goes on to look at goddesses, gods and spirits as a cause and remedy of a variety of diseases, a study that has proved significant to the ethics and politics of responding to health issues. It contributes to a consolidation and promotion of indigenous ways as a method of understanding physical and mental imbalances through diverse conceptions of the divine. Chapters offer a fascinating overview of healing rituals in South Asia and provide a full-length, sustained discussion of the interface between religion, ritual, and folklore. The book presents a fresh insight into studies of Asian Religion and the History of Medicine.

Healing is one of the most constant themes in the long and sprawling history of Christianity. Jesus himself performed many miracles of healing. In the second century, St. Ignatius was the first to describe the eucharist as the medicine of immortality. Prudentius, a 4th-century poet and Christian apologist, celebrated the healing power of St. Cyprian's tongue. Bokenham, in his 15th-century Legendary, reported the healing power of milk from St. Agatha's breasts. Zulu prophets in 19th-century Natal petitioned Jesus to cure diseases caused by restless spirits. And Mary Baker Eddy invoked the Science of Divine Mind as a weapon against malicious animal magnetism. In this book Amanda Porterfield demonstrates that healing has played a major role in the historical development of Christianity as a world religion. Porterfield traces the origin of Christian healing and maps its transformations in the ancient, medieval, and modern worlds. She shows that Christian healing had its genesis in Judean beliefs that sickness and suffering were linked to sin and evil, and that health and healing stemmed from repentance and divine forgiveness. Examining Jesus' activities as a healer and exorcist, she shows how his followers carried his combat against sin and evil and his compassion for suffering into new and very different cultural environments, from the ancient Mediterranean to modern America and beyond. She explores the interplay between Christian healing and medical practice from ancient times up to the present, looks at recent discoveries about religion's biological effects, and considers what these findings mean in light of ages-old traditions about belief and healing. Changing Christian ideas of healing, Porterfield shows, are a window into broader changes in religious authority, church structure, and ideas about sanctity, history, resurrection, and the kingdom of God. Her study allows us to see more clearly than ever before that healing has always been and remains central to the Christian vision of sin and redemption, suffering and bodily resurrection.