Abstract

The great variety of ways in which people pertaining to different cultural traditions conceive of, deal with, and take steps to remedy human ailments makes it difficult to treat the topic of healing in general terms. Cases of illness are experienced by every single patient through the cultural patterns they have learned from the group in which they were formed and the habitus they have deeply incorporated over time and by which their experience is shaped. Therefore, the ways of conceiving, naming, explaining, and pragmatically responding to illness are inevitably plural and historically and geographically variable. Equally variable are the ways in which health – the aim of every therapeutic act – is conceived. However, anthropology also provides us with the analytical tools to identify some constants that can be found beneath the variety of forms, as well as some recurring logics that allow for comparison, and allow us to attempt an explanation of how such disparate ideas and practices can reach their efficacy. In this paper, the author tries to outline some recurring features that seem to characterize concepts and actions diffusely related to healing.