30 chapter
by the conjugation of the verb (for example, fuimos in Spanish means “we,” not
“they” or “she,” “went”). In Malayalam, even when the subject is omitted, the
verb has exactly the same conjugation for each person (for example, pōyi could
be “I,” “you,” “they” or anyone else “went”). Sometimes the subject is clear from
context, but often it is—deliberately, I would argue—ambiguous. In interviews
with people suff ering illness, it is often impossible to tell, for example, if it was
the mother speaking for the ill daughter, or the daughter, or both, who felt
relief after a particular experience.^25
Th e socially dispersed self is further revealed in ayurvedic methods of
psychological counseling where it is permissible to give advice to a patient.
Advice is ideally avoided in Western psychological and allopathic psychiat-
ric therapy, where it is considered crucial that the patient develop her own
insights. However, the individualistic ideals of allopathic psychiatry are not
always upheld in psychiatric practice in India. One allopathic psychiatrist in
Kerala, who had practiced for a period at a university medical center in the
United States, said that in psychiatric practice in India one must more actively
engage the family in treatment, and explained that early on in his consult-
ations in Kerala he tries to identify a family member he can use as an ally in
implementing treatment.^26
Although the socially dispersed self is a fundamental part of life in South
Asia, some cultural practices in India are highly individualistic. In Hindu reli-
gious practice, for example, there is no congregational worship (as there is
in Islam, Judaism or Christianity) although people gather for special rituals.
Instead a person decides on her own how to make the rounds at a temple,
which one often visits alone. Strains of Indian philosophy, such as Yoga and
Vedānta, can be viewed as individualistic, as attempting to distinguish the true
self, ātman, from any social or phenomenal attributes; however, one might say
that ātman represents a universal true self as distinct from the particularistic
authentic self celebrated in Western psychology and literature.
The Comparability of Forms of Illness
I was asked by a psychologist in Kerala how I would defi ne and standardize
the kinds of illness I was examining in my work in Kerala. How many schizo-
phrenics or depressive patients would I have in my sample, or how would I
know what illness someone who was being treated for possession was suff er-
ing from? I explained that I did not want to privilege the illness defi nitions
of any one therapeutic system, and I would therefore use the patient’s and
his or her accompanying family members’ descriptions of the problem as the