A Curandera's Concept of Medicine and Illness

When the natural and the spiritual are not torn apart into disjointed entities, there is a balance between human and nature. Human beings have a spiritual nature as well as an individual soul, and the body can not be cut away from the soul and spirit. Humans are members of the natural world -animals, plants, minerals, earth, and all living things found on earth. Illness occurs when one does not live in harmony with all these aspects of "self.".

In western medicine, the body goes to the hospital, the mind goes to a psychiatrist, and the soul/spirit goes to church. In Curanderismo, there is no such severing between the emotional, physical, mental, and spiritual realms. There is no separation between the nature of humans and their environment. The totality of the person is the patient. The folk healer does not withhold her own religious and spiritual beliefs from her treatments.

A soul that is off-balance is said to be suffering from Susto (fright), and the treatment involves a "soul retrieval." If one's spirit has lost faith in God or the Divine, one suffers an illness as real as a physical or mental illness. All aspects of the "self" will suffer, and one will experience diseases that affect one's body, mind, emotions, spirit, soul, family, community, and nature. The Curandera understands this concept of illness and will have a knowledge of how to guide the patient back to balance.

Curanderas also have insight into the way the patient perceives his own illness within the context of his culture. The patient's values, family, society, and culture must all be taken into account. No treatment goal can be envisaged that does not involve a value which is itself culturally determined.