66 chapter
emphasis on these therapies. Pills are extraordinarily easy to use, and it is
not hard to understand that an overworked psychiatrist might turn to the
samples sitting on her desk rather than go to the library and look for research
on, say, cognitive behavioral therapy to treat a patient. Even if she did so, she
would probably not have the time to apply psychodynamic therapies in her
practice.
Individuals diagnosed with serious mental disorders are admitted for
inpatient care, which involves medication, counseling and other procedures.
Inpatients are given medications in the form of pills or through injections, and
electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is administered to acutely suicidal patients,
extremely agitated patients who are not calmed by other means, or patients
who have been psychotic for a short duration and are not responding to medi-
cations. ECT appears to be utilized in Kerala more often than it is in the
United States.^22 Several former patients of allopathic medicine, whom my
research assistants and I interviewed while they were using other therapies,
reported receiving ECT while being treated at allopathic facilities. As will be
seen in Chapter 5, several patients complained about the unpleasant eff ects
of this procedure and the drug injections they were given, and some switched
to ayurvedic treatment, which they found to be less abrasive and occasionally
even pleasurable to undergo.
Allopathic and ayurvedic psychiatry share some fundamental similarities
that become especially apparent when these treatment systems are compared
to religious therapies. A key similarity is that both ayurvedic and allopathic
psychiatrists work on manipulating the patient physiologically according to
their medical system’s understandings of biology. Biological manipulation is
not completely unknown in religious therapies, and there may be biological
eff ects that derive from patients’ engagement in these therapies—for example,
a sense of spiritual comfort or inspiration may aff ect a person’s neurochemistry
or help relive hypertension. But this is not as explicit or as important as the ill
person’s relationship to the divine, which is not usually engaged or given much
attention in ayurveda and allopathy.
Religious Therapies
Th e grouping of the healing practices at Beemapalli mosque, Chottanikkara
temple, and Vettucaud church into the category “religious therapies” is
somewhat, but not completely, problematic. Th ese could also be conceived
as three additional therapies, yet their techniques also overlap with the other
therapies. Healers at Chottanikkara Hindu temple and Muslim thangals