Biologically-Based Therapies

What is traditional healing?        Traditional healing refers to practices anchored in the belief that supernatural beings possess healing abilities. It also integrates herbal medicine and body-based therapies into its various procedures. In the Philippines, the concept of traditional healing dates back to the babaylans —these were women leaders (or men dressed as women) who served many roles in a tribe. In their role as a healer, they would use their special connection to the spiritual world to invoke spirits for the purpose of treating the ill (Nomoto, 2020). Traditional healing is recognized and accepted for its role in health maintenance and disease treatment and is based on indigenous concepts handed down by generations of healers (WHO, 2002). Personal Experiences a. Hilot Photo Credit: Philippine Institute of Traditional and Alternative Healthcare      Most of us have sought and experienced the practice of Hilot for reasons such as balda, coug...

Through the Eyes of a Healer and Her Patients by Artuz, Duco, Tan, Tolibas, Toque, Torres, Triol, Villaluna   Traditional healing is an ingrained component of Filipino culture, which existed for hundred years before the Spanish colonization, and is continuously passed down for generations. Philippine traditional medicine is a systematized collection of unconventional practices and beliefs reflecting the country’s indigenous culture and heritage. Apart from emerging from the practices of ethnic and indigenous Filipinos, traditional medicine was also presumed to be influenced by the Chinese traditional medicine systems, local folklore, and Christianity—incorporating healing practices with prayer [1]. It is grounded on locally recognized beliefs of disease causation, employs distinctive methodologies and the human instinct to arrive at a diagnosis, and utilizes novel treatment modalities, atypical of western medicine [2]. Moreover, the continued existence of traditional healers in the...