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Psycho-Spiritual Healing
Psycho-Spiritual Healing is a third aspect of traditional Thai
medicine called ráksaã thaang nai (inner healing) or kâe kam kaò
(literally, 'old karma repair'). It includes various types of
meditation, or visualization practiced by the patient, as well as
shamanistic rituals performed by qualified healers.
These strategies represent the psycho-spiritual side of Thai medical
therapy, and like massage, are usually practiced in conjunction with
other types of treatment.
With the increasing acceptance of meditation, hypnosis and
biofeedback in Occidental medicine, anthropologists nowadays are
less inclined to classify such metaphysical therapy as 'magico-religious',
accepting them instead, as potentially useful adjunct therapies.
As in the West, psycho-spiritual techniques are most commonly
reserved for medical conditions with no apparent physical cause. Or
those for which other therapies have proved unsuccessful. In
Thailand they are also occasionally employed as a preventive
measure, as in the bai sii ceremony popular in north-eastern
Thailand and Laos.
This elaborate ceremony, marked by the tying of string loops around
a subject's wrists, is intended to bind the 32 khwãn or personal
guardian spirits, each associated with a specific organ, to the
individual. The ritual is often performed before a person departs on
a long or distant journey, based on the reasoning that one is more
susceptible to illness when away from home.
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