The psychosocial context of bodily sensations - embodied perception in the setting of alternative medicine

Abstract

Background: In the intercultural milieu of medical pluralism, a nexus of worldviews espousing distinct explanatory models of illness, our research aims at exploring factors leading to complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) use. As illness-interpretations of patients socialized in a biomedical setting are altered vis-à-vis CAM concepts, so is the psychosocial context in which patients interpret their bodily sensations. Assigning meaning to somatic sensations connotes a recurring reference point in the therapeutic process and thus signifies a vital focal point of our study. Methods: The results are based on medical anthropological fieldwork that commenced in September 2014 at a clinic of Traditional Chinese Medicine in Budapest, Hungary. The ongoing fieldwork involves 163 patients (males: 64; mean age=53) and entails participating in everyday work, observing admittance of patients, conducting unstructured and in-depth interviews with patients/staff. The interviews are coded with Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis; all information is aggregated employing Atlas.ti software. Findings: Each item in the panoply of recorded somatic sensations is interpretable by the patients and practitioners as either negative (falling ill, relapse) or positive (healing, therapeutic efficacy); there is no apparent intra- or interpersonal consensus regarding their appraisal. Pain, tingling, heat, etc. experienced during treatment or as symptoms of illness/recovery are embodied experiences subject to ambivalent appraisal. Their perception and meaning is shaped by the psychosocial context and explanatory models of those in the behavioral environment. Discussion: A heuristic for assigning meaning to bodily sensations contributes to an understanding of therapy choice, subjective evaluation of therapeutic efficacy, and illness perception, interpretation.