Int J Health Serv. 1986 ; 16(4): 627-42.

The social consequence of wellness: a view of healing outcomes from micro and macro perspectives.

Finkler K.

Using field data from Mexican Spiritualist healing, this article focuses on the relationship between treatment outcomes at the individual and social levels. Two issues are explored 1) to what degree do persons treated by Spiritualist healing techniques fit into the wider society of which they are part, and 2) what effects does a given healing system exert on socioeconomic and political arrangements? The discussion brings into bold relief the contradictions embedded in Spiritualist healing techniques and rituals when studied from micro and macro perspectives. Using physiological and social analysis, the author addresses the reasons why individuals participate in Spiritualist healing and rituals, despite the resultant reproduction of socioeconomic and political forms that are contrary to the participants' concerns and interests and that may also be illness producing. By way of conclusion, it is suggested that, on a macro level, healing systems of the Spiritualist kind tend to perpetuate the socioeconomic and political systems.