Discussion: Healing as a Form of Intervention
A psychotherapeutic intervention is a treatment that addresses a physical problem, a mental problem, or both. Psychotherapeutic interventions are targeted differently in non-Western cultures. In Western cultures, such interventions tend to focus on the mind. They are separate from medicine, which focuses on the body.
Psychotherapeutic interventions in non-Western cultures (referred to as "traditional cultures" in your text) often are identified as healing and focus on the health of the whole person rather than on addressing an individual problem. In non-Western cultures, medical interventions are not separated clearly from psychotherapeutic interventions.
The use of psychotherapeutic interventions in different parts of the world is influenced by both society and culture. Your text refers to these influencers as "the sociocultural context." The term sociocultural context includes such factors as religion, community beliefs about health and illness, rituals such as initiation or purification ceremonies, and relationships with family.
To prepare for this Discussion:
• Review Chapter 8 in your course text, paying particular attention to the section on psychotherapy in its sociocultural context. Review non-Western healing therapies such as Morita, Naikan, and Zen.
• Review the articles: "Buddhist psychotherapy" and "The effect of yoga on functional recovery level in schizophrenic patients."
• Review this week's media about psychotherapy in Argentina. You may wish to view the clips more than once and take notes.
• Select a non-Western psychotherapeutic intervention and think about how that intervention is an expression of its sociocultural context.
• Consider the similarities and differences between the psychotherapeutic intervention you selected and psychotherapeutic interventions in Western cultures.
• Using the Walden University library, search and find one current peer-reviewed article that reports on a psychotherapeutic intervention practiced in traditional cultures.
With these thoughts in mind:
Post a description of the non-Western psychotherapeutic intervention you selected. Explain two ways in which this intervention is an expression of its sociocultural context. Finally, explain two similarities and two differences between the psychotherapeutic intervention you selected and psychotherapeutic interventions in Western cultures.
Note: Identify the psychotherapeutic intervention in the first line of your post. You will be asked to respond to a colleague who selected a psychotherapeutic intervention that you did not.