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African Americans and Alternative Therapies

African Americans and Alternative Therapies. Folk Medicine & Folk Practices Home Remedies Religious Practices Yvonne Eaves, PhD, RN Assistant Professor. The Interrelationship of Culture, Health, & Illness. Health care beliefs and practices are: diverse & complex

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African Americans and Alternative Therapies

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  1. African Americans and Alternative Therapies Folk Medicine & Folk Practices Home Remedies Religious Practices Yvonne Eaves, PhD, RN Assistant Professor

  2. The Interrelationship of Culture, Health, & Illness • Health care beliefs and practices are: • diverse & complex • cross ethnic, cultural, & social boundaries • Culture influences individuals’ expectations & perceptions about health, illness, and disease • Cultural values influence how individuals cope with illness, disease, & stress

  3. What is African American (Black) Folk Medicine? • Belief in supernatural forces • Health & illness viewed as either natural or unnatural • Self-care practices that may include the integration of ritualistic behaviors with medicinal remedies (e.g. dancing, chanting, massaging with ointments, ingesting herbs)

  4. Origins of African American Folk Beliefs • Traced back to 1619 when slaves were brought into the U.S. • Slaves preferred self-treatment or treatment by friends, older relatives, or conjure doctors • Origins in West Africa • Religion interwoven into health care beliefs and practices • Influenced by beliefs developed in Haiti, Jamaica, and Trinidad

  5. Folk Beliefs • Healing properties of certain herbs and spices • Supernatural forces • View of health and illness

  6. Influences on African American Folk Beliefs and Folk Medicine • Historical • Societal; socio-political • Economical • Educational • Familial • Geographical

  7. Health natural good reward (God) Illness unnatural evil (spell, devil) punishment (God) Dichotomy of Health & Illness in Folk Beliefs

  8. African American Folk Practices and Practitioners • Granny • Spiritualist • Voodoo priest or priestess

  9. Witchcraft: An Alternative Form of Folk Medicine • Belief that witchcraft can be used to treat illness/disease and to inflict illness/disease • Premise: there are some individuals who possess the ability to mobilize the forces of good and evil. Such abilities are based on the principle of sympathetic magic.

  10. Witchcraft: An Alternative Form of Folk Medicine (contd.) • Premise of Sympathetic Magic • everything in the universe is connected • there is a direct correlation between the body and forces of nature • understanding these connections assists an individual in the interpretation and manipulation of events

  11. Two Types of Sympathetic Magic • Contagious • physically connected objects can never be separated • any action against the part constitutes an action against the whole • Imitative • Premise: “like follows like” • a person will imitate the desired behavior or achievement

  12. Healing as a Gift from God • 3 Levels of Healing (Flaskerud & Rush, 1989) • Persons who learned their craft from others (a grandmother, a neighbor; a nursing or medical school) • Healers on whom God has bestowed the gift of healing during a religious experience. • Persons born with the power of curing. God’s sign is on such persons at the time of birth.

  13. Home Remedies • Used mostly for acute and chronic illnesses/conditions • May be used for health promotion or disease prevention • herbs, spices, foods, teas, ointments, liniments,

  14. African American Religion & Church Services • Spirit Possession • Healing Services • Prophecy • Spiritual Churches of New Orleans (1920s - 1930s)

  15. Pertinent Research • AIDS and Traditional Health Beliefs and Practices of Black Women (Flaskerud & Rush, 1989) • Use of Complementary & Alternative Medicine among African American and Hispanic Women in New York City: A Pilot Study (Cushman, Wade, Factor-Litvak, Kronenberg, & Firester, 1999) • Religion/Spirituality and Health Among Elderly African Americans and Hispanics (Stolley & Koenig, 1997) • Biofeedback & Relaxation in Blacks with Hypertension: A Preliminary Study (Harrison & Rao, 1979)

  16. Pertinent Research • A Progressive Relaxation Intervention at the Worksite for African American Women (Webb, Smyth, & Yarandi, 2000) • Ethnomusic Therapy and the Dual-Diagnosed African American Client (Camphina-Bacote & Allbright, 1992) • Acute Renal Failure from Herbal and Patent Remedies in Blacks (Gold, 1980)

  17. Implications • Practice • Education • Research

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