Non-medical treatments and their outcomes

This article focuses on outcomes of Spiritualist treatments based upon a series of follow-up studies of patients who came to a Spiritualist temple situated in a rural region of Mexico. Categories of temple patients and conditions under which they resort to alternate therapeutic regimes are also examined. Follow-ups reveal that Spiritualist healers fail more than they succeed to treating their patients. The data suggest that therapeutic benefits from Spiritualist healing tend to occur in four types of disorders--simple diarrheas, simple gynecological disorders, somatized syndromes and minor psychiatric disorders. The findings suggest that successful treatment outcomes are effected not only by concrete manipulation of physiological symptoms but by symbolic manipulation as well. That is, for a therapeutic regime to do its job it must confront cultural imperatives and employ cultural symbols relevant to the removal of the sick role. An unexpected finding of the study reveals that, in the Mexican case, the cultural imperatives relate to cleaning and purification, mediated by tactile communication, which serve symbolically to terminate the sick role.