Multiculturally crazy: Diagnosis in black

Psychoanalysis, begins with Freud, is little more than a century old and therefore still in its infancy when compared to traditional healing which can be traced back to the beginnings of human society. Traditional healing is still actively practised at present in pre-technological communities all over the world. In Western societies there also exists a multiplicity of 'alternative' medical and spiritual healing methods, usually associated with holistic health philosophies, neo-religious cults and charismatic religious movements. It makes the radically different assumption that within the physical body there exists another 'body' that can be neither seen nor touched but which profoundly affects both our mental and physical health. From the perspective adopted it might be regarded as the contemporary application in psychotherapy of the age-old technique of exorcism. Healing and exorcism are very different modes of functioning, it would be a misleading simplification to see them as mutually exclusive.