
A Prayer’s Chance: The scandal of mental health in West Africa (2017) - Thevet
https://harpers.org/archive/2017/05/a-prayers-chance/?single=1
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RcouF1uZ4gsC
The issue is often that even with modern medicine, the treatments for mental
illness are less than ideal. The medications effectiveness can vary as can the
side effects. So when people hear that at best they have a life-long condition
that can at best be managed with medication that they have to take everyday
(which can be expensive) and have to watch out for side effects and other
health problems from the medications, of course people will look to anything
that will give them hope.

Even in the most modern treatment center with the most modern drugs, they will
have to restrain some patients (whether chemically or physically). This goes
to show that we still are still at a very early stage in our understanding and
treatment of mental illness.

How many times have you heard of faith healing for a torn ACL (anterior
cruciate ligament in the knee)? I have never heard of it, because we have a
common procedure that works very, very, well with little side effects other
than the immediate pain and discomfort post-surgery.

In terms of glass houses, compared to anti-vaxxers and "raw" water drinkers in
the US, the people seeking faith healing are at the level of Socrates in terms
of logical thinking.

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robocat
[schizophrenics] do better in Third World than in West (1996)

[http://www.independent.co.uk/news/mentally-ill-do-better-
in-...](http://www.independent.co.uk/news/mentally-ill-do-better-in-third-
world-than-in-west-1320282.html)

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sandworm101
Those in glass houses. Faith-based healing, in paticular 12-step programs, are
common in the US. I would not equate the two, but the idea of treatment
through prayer isnt just an africa thing.

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jacobush
And sometimes it even works.

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echlebek
Is there evidence of that?

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Broken_Hippo
Evidence is mixed, and it depends on what numbers you look at unfortunately.
I've personally met at least one person that credited the program with kicking
drinking. Unfortunately this doesn't really make it any better than a placebo
effect (Which is better than nothing, I guess). And it doesn't cure my special
hatred for AA (and AA type programs), especially as a court-ordered standard
of care.

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allthenews
Is it right to help people in third world countries if it effectively means we
are erasing parts or all of their culture with our own? Are we meddling?

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whatshisface
I'm not sure what's questionable about that, we "erase" things from western
culture (doctors being proud of bloodstains and never sanitizing for one
example) to improve its effectiveness fairly often.

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allthenews
I think there's an implicit assumption of cultural superiority in such case.

This mirrors the pattern of imperialist "civilization" of "savages" that drove
the European world to commandeer undeveloped nations over the last few hundred
years at least. Sure, we believe that we have discovered certain truths
through this concept that we call science, and, our ideas seem objectively
correct; but does that justify our interference, and replacement of parts or
all of their cultures with our own?

There are parallels here to government sponsored gentrification, I think.

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Kalium
What alternatives do you find preferable, should one wish to avoid
contamination and preserve the purity of indigenous cultures?

Shall we not tell people that conditions are treatable or offer our knowledge,
because it stems from a Western imperialist cultural context?

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allthenews
I'm not sure, I don't mean to imply any wrongdoing with any certainty, only to
give pause to people who blindly believe that they are helping.

But, what about cultures that, for example, believe that pain is integral to
the human experience? Or possibly those that believe that humans are better
off having suffered some amount in their youth? These ideals are inconsistent
even among the developed world[1].

I guess the question is, are we wrong in assuming that our ideals regarding
medicine and necessity for treatment are universal? And if we are, are we
wrong in stepping in and attempting to improve quality of life according to
our first world notions? Then there's the question of whether we really have
made things better in, say, much of Africa over the last few decades.

1\.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16252372](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16252372)

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Kalium
You're absolutely right! Many cultures have different attitudes than ours.
Pain is an excellent example.

Are you aware that it's also a cornerstone of Western Imperialist Medicine
that the patient has the right to refuse any treatment, such as palliative
treatment for pain? In this way, our attitudes are not _forced_ on other
cultures. Members of other cultures are offered personal choices. Though I
recognize that some regard this as a cultural imperialist imposition on
cultures where personal autonomy is not valued.

Personally, I think that western cultural imperialism has drastically improved
lives through items such as anti-retrovirual drugs, mosquito nets, and
drinking water filters. But I understand that some might choose to value
traditional ways of life and ways of knowing and folk beliefs - and the
attendant human suffering and deaths - over imposing our cultural that values
human lives and the reduction of suffering.

It's just perhaps possible that, having carefully considered this issue, and
aware of the historical context wherein this is not assumed but thought about,
some people may have concluded that this is an acceptable imperialist
imposition. Thank you very much for your kind, caring, thoughtful ideas!

