Our worldview can shape our beliefs and practices of healing, it is a social construct of the culture into which we were born. The dynamic characteristics of culture in how it functions and behaves are learned through experience. Culture is a system of meanings embodied in symbols whose contents include language, beliefs, values, and material artifacts. We assign meanings to symbols within our culture – the meanings are not universally understood.
Therefore, approaching the unfamiliar with a holistic mindset, rather than an ethnocentric, allows a deeper understanding of the thoughts, feelings, and beliefs of other cultures rather than making hasty judgments or assumptions. In other words, holism takes into account the whole of the human condition – biology, society, language, culture, etc. It is impossible to observe and study one element while ignoring another because they all work together to form the bigger picture of understanding. This same holistic approach towards healing could be taken, maybe it is impossible to heal without considering the whole person.
On the other hand, cultural relativism opposes ethnocentrism. It holds the view that behavior in one culture should not be judged by the standards of another. In a way, cultural relativism is like breaking the fourth wall; you are aware of your potential for biases and ethnocentrism, so you step outside of yourself to attempt to view other cultures from a blank-slate perspective. The question follows, is it possible to truly remain objective and hold to the standard of cultural relativism? We see the world through the lens of our culture of origin, even when we break the fourth wall and are aware of our worldview our bias remains. Kearney said, “The ethnographer will never completely become native because he will always acquire his new cultural perceptions as an overlay on his own natal culture”.
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In reading the Nacerima article, what struck me first was the oddness of the behaviors and rituals described. I realized halfway through that everything being described sounded very similar to our own American culture but from an ethnocentric perspective. Suddenly I became aware that the article is a satirical piece on American culture. Nacirema is ‘American’ spelled backward, and this is a term used to describe American culture from an outsider anthropological viewpoint. As I read through this article, I felt my own ethnocentric bias taking hold, only to realize that it was my own culture being described. This satirical piece is a great example of how your worldview affects the way you understand another culture, our worldview of the same culture is understood entirely different because it is our own.
A Very Bad Disease of Arms introduced a new idea for me, that even as an anthropologist trying to take a cultural relativism stance and remain objective, it is possible to still have a bias. Even when gaining an understanding of the worldview of a different culture, it would still not quite be the same as if we were a part of that culture. Our understanding would come from the social construction of our culture layered with our new understanding of the culture studied.
Meaning, even when we do learn something new about another culture, we might not ever be fully understanding it – the meaning is clouded by our cultural lens. Additionally, our minds shape our reality and culture, too, is constructed within the mind. This may never allow one to fully immerse themselves into another culture because one may never understand the small idiosyncrasies and nuances learned over a lifetime.
As a care provider, I will see patients whose perspectives and beliefs vary from mine, but that does not make them unequally valid. For example, the desire to pray before a procedure or to bring in sage and palo santo to rid evil spirits. It is difficult to come from a scientific ‘evidence-based’ background and give respect to these cultural constructs that seemingly are not science-based. Science is constructed by humans to explain things we understand and is therefore subject to error. There are things we do not understand cannot be explained by science.
Worldview shapes our beliefs, and it may even influence the effectiveness of treatment due to the mind-body connection. This theory has been shown legitimacy through the placebo effect. Our beliefs affect the outcome of treatment to some extent, both at the patient and provider level. Such is the purpose of double-blind trials – to examine the effectiveness of treatment without the beliefs of the patient or provider potentially influencing results.
This concept of mind-body connection can also be translated into healing. You don’t know what you don’t know, being open to other practices of healing as effective treatments may broaden your ability to treat people, vs being close-minded. Respecting other cultures and incorporating their beliefs and practices into treatments, instead of rejecting them as invalid, increases the global knowledge bank, opens opportunities to learn, and benefits more people as a whole.
When examining breastfeeding we can see another example of how our worldview and beliefs shape our reality. Worldwide and throughout many cultures, breastfeeding is the cultural norm with the average weaning age of two to seven years old. Within American culture the rates of breastfeeding are much lower when compared globally. One explanation may be the presence of several cultural barriers to breastfeeding. In the middle of the last century, it was seen as inferior to breastfeed and that formula was best, and a sign of affluence.
We now know that this is not true and there are countless benefits to breastfeeding, however, the cultural barriers and misconceptions remain. Moreover, there is a lack of support and firm beliefs that mothers cannot adequately provide for their children. I’ve personally experienced these cultural barriers as a breastfeeding mother, in particular a lack of support and knowledge from providers. I’ve noticed that more and more new mothers are questioning the current cultural normative around breastfeeding and perhaps this shift in worldview will weaken the current cultural barriers.
