When it comes to healing in psychology, various aspects are involved, and that need some explication. Even though they all boil down to healing psychologically, the concepts of non-western indigenous methods and its western counterpart show significant disparity as far as counseling is concerned. Each region of the world has its way of achieving the fundamental objective of counseling.
As often used in anthropology and social sciences, indigenous is primarily used to mean the original inhabitants of a given region. Indigenous healing encompasses aspects like the physical, spiritual, and emotional practices that all aim to achieve a certain outcome in the counseling process (Marsella & Pedersen, 2010). Essentially, these aspects wrap up into the beliefs and practices unique to a particular group. Further, and more importantly, the notion of healing implies certain expectations of the helper including the use of inspiration and intuition, sometimes both. Also, the healer may sometimes apply higher powers and becomes a conduit between the physical and spiritual world.
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Unlike non-western indigenous forms of healing in psychotherapy, the west accentuates on clinical knowledge and not its spiritual counterpart. However, some experts opine that accentuating on clinical knowledge may hamper the healer from working authentically with the unique integration of the heart, mind, and spirit. The western methods narrow the problem of diagnosis.
The non-western methods may not align with a Christian biblical worldview because of the manner in which the aspects of healing are founded. While the two concepts intersect at the belief of a higher and more powerful power, the non-western methods incorporate intrinsic qualities of indigenous healing such as the reliance on family networks, groups, or communities to solve the problems (Vaughn, 2014).
References
Marsella, A., & Pedersen, P. (2010). Mental Health in a Global Community: Time to Integrate Western and Traditional Cultural Healing Methods. Psyccritiques, 55(16). doi: 10.1037/a0019201
Vaughn, D. (2014). Healing Massage Techniques: A Study of Eastern and Western Methods. Psychotherapy , 59(9), 1172-1172. doi: 10.1093/ptj/59.9.1172
