Social Dimensions of Health: Ritual Practice, Moral Orders, and Worlds of Meaning in Brazilian Candomblé and Umbanda Temples

Abstract

In Western medicine the interpretation prevails that mental illness is a psychological and/or biological disorder. Most important concepts in health psychology, such as sense of coherence, self-efficacy, hope, or dispositional optimism are all very cognition and individual centered. In this individualized perspective, mental illness is constructed in such a way that it can be treated in a dyadic doctor–patient or therapist–patient relationship with the help of drugs or therapeutic techniques. In this article, I would like to develop a contrasting social construction of mental illness. In Umbanda and Candomblé temples in Brazil, what is interpreted in the Western model as illness is understood as a “spiritual problem.” Here, the individual is constructed in relationship to the community, and individual health and healing is footed in moral-spiritual orders. In presenting the details of my investigation, I will apply Grawe’s common factors as a foil for developing the link between mental illness and its social context.