A sophisticated and sympathetic look at nonconventional healing
methods and their place in a pluralistic democracy. Frohock
(Political Science/Syracuse Univ.; Special Care, 1986) poses two
tough questions: What do we make of claims that alternative
realities exist and that contact with them can lead to miraculous
cures? And should alternative healing be flee from state regulation
in a liberal democracy? Neither gets a clear answer, but there's
much pleasure along the way as Frohock explores the social and
spiritual issues involved. His approach is eccentric: "narratives"
constructed from interviews with patients and healers (names are
changed), interspersed with historico-political analysis and with -
this must be a first in a scholarly book - the "wholly
imaginative," coldly lucid voice of Luke, a child battling cancer
(he's been invented, we are told, "to provide access to interior or
subjective levels of experience that linear texts cannot"). The
healers whose stories we hear include Pentecostal ministers,
Catholic priests, Christian Scientists, homeopaths, an Orthodox Jew
who straddles Western and alternative medicines; the patients
include drug-addicted doctors, dying children, car-crash victims.
More often than not, the cure seems nothing less than a
full-fledged miracle. Frohock balances these narratives with
clearheaded discussions of some age-old puzzlers: What is health
(inner balance, spiritual integrity, freedom from disease)? What is
mental competence? How should church and state interact? Usually,
Frohock presents the options and lets the reader decide; scholarly
distancing, however, cannot hide his sympathy for alternative
medicine - or at least its right to be taken seriously. The
inaugural volume in the Univ. of Chicago's "Morality and Society"
series, which deals with "moral issues from a social science
perspective" - and, on every level, a sterling debut. (Kirkus
Reviews)
The personal testimony of individuals engaged in healing practices
and the opposing voices of orthodox and alternative medicines are
the center of "Healing Powers." Focusing on medical norms and
practices and on competing philosophies of the mind, the body,
reality, and rationality across radically different "belief
systems," Fred Frohock clarifies the social and legal dilemmas
represented by "scientific medicine" and "alternative care."
"Frohock goes beyond the often irreconcilable differences between
scientific biomedicine and alternative care by clarifying the
social and legal dilemmas they present. . . . A noteworthy
contribution forcing us to rethink what medical care is all
about."--Jeffrey Michael Clare, "Journal of the American Medical
Association"
"The book does more and better than simply provide a
social-scientific proposal. It also gives not only a hearing but a
voice to those who follow alternative therapies. . . . Frohock's
accounts of their stories--along with the stories of the medical
professionals--are eloquent and fascinating."--Allen Verhey,
"Medical Humanities Review"
"Contains a storehouse of valuable information about the
historical, philosophical, and psychological bases of alternative
approaches to healing."--Marshall B. Kapp, "New England Journal of
Medicine"
"Frohock introduces us to the scientific naturopaths and to
physicians who believe in the mind's power to heal, to charismatics
who believe in but cannot explain their powers, to those who test
God and those who merely accept. He writes so well that I felt I
had met these people."--Arthur W. Frank, "Christian Century"
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