Essay: The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down

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This is an essay on The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman. Anne Fadiman shows in great detail how cultural differences if not appreciated and ignored can cause a great deal of pain. In the case of Lia, whose parents were immigrants from a totally different culture, did not know English, and were used to going to traditional healers for their ailments.

The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman shows in great detail how cultural differences if not appreciated and ignored can cause a great deal of pain.  In the case of Lia, whose parents were immigrants from a totally different culture, did not know English, and were used to going to traditional healers for their ailments. To me this was an act of ignorance and intolerance particularly when the people knew that the parents loved their child. Consequently, her health did not improve after putting her in foster care, in fact her health deteriorated. Kleinman gives three very practical suggestions. This quote shows that there is a need in the dominant culture to have the flexibility accommodate and accept other subcultures significantly different from it.

The western biomedical theory is that there are no substitutes of healing; there are no other healers other than the trusted biomedical sciences. Other attitudes about the incidence, identification, and cure of disease are ignored and degraded. Adjustment and modification to Western culture, principally the dominant Western medical culture, have been difficult for Hmong people. In addition, this has been obvious by the reaction of the people of the tribe who have heard negative things from people back in America about the healthcare providers. They view the doctors and healthcare professionals as being very intrusive asking personal questions, pricking and probing, and generally infringing on an individual’s private matters, which their healer the Txiv neeb would never do, and consequently the initial experiences were terrifying as it was the last possible option for these people.

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