Changing Others: The Anthropological Study of Therapeutic Systems

Abstract

environments to facilitate change; and an evaluation of consequences and personal standards (i.e., what kind of behavior will assist the individual in feeling better about him/herself?). The speakers and invited representatives of self-help groups led workshop discussions on the final afternoon. The San Francisco Women's Health Collective presented a film and discussion on gynecological self-help. Zola discussed the Boston Self-Help Center, an organization of chronically diseased and physically handicapped people. Gerald Matteson and Ruth Ann Williamson (Nevada-Reno) described a program in which they taught basic self-help skills to residents of rural Nevada communities which lacked adequate medical resources. David Hayes-Bautista (UC-Berkeley) spoke of his involvement with La Clinica de la Raza, a Chicano community organization in East Oakland providing health services as part of a more comprehensive, politically-oriented program. Recovery, Inc., a San Francisco Bay Area association of past and present mental le ; restructuring of social, physical, and community patients, discussed their program. Fries, Levin and Thorensen devoted their workshops to more extensive examinations of issues raised in their presentations. Werner, with the assistance of Martin Reyes, a native health worker from the highland Mexico village in which Werner had established the indigenous health program noted above, spoke more about this crosscultural venture.