Psychology
St. John’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, with Uwe P. Gielen
and Juris G. Draguns, eds.
Handbook of Culture, Therapy, and
Healing
Publisher: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates
Mahwah, NJ
2004, 433 pages
The editors have brought together leading psychologists,
psychiatrists, anthropologists and others to consider the
interaction of psychosocial, biological and cultural variables as
they influence the assessment of health and illness and the course
of therapy. The volume includes broadly conceived theoretical and
survey chapters; detailed descriptions of specific healing
traditions in Asia, the Americas, Africa and the Arab world; and
chapters focusing on multicultural concerns within societies,
specific populations (such as refugees) and the integration of
traditional and modern forms of counseling and healing. Taken
together, the chapters offer a broad overview of Western and
non-Western traditions as they span the divides among psychosocial,
medical and religious approaches.
“It contains 20 chapters and provides interdisciplinary
perspectives on the role of culture in healing. The Handbook should
serve as a valuable resource for health care professionals,
particularly those who work (or wish to work) with ethnic clients
and in other countries. It could serve as the main textbook in a
graduatelevel course in cross-cultural psychology, or as an
adjunctive text in courses on psychopathology and
psychotherapy.”
—V. K. Kumar and Frank Farley.