Ghost illness: a cross-cultural experience with the expression of a non-western tradition in clinical practice.

Ethnocentric beliefs and attributes of illness, etiology, and death are discussed in patients from three different cultures Navajo, Salish, and Hrnong. The cases illustrate the role of the dead in concerns and fears related to illness, depression and suicidal behavior. These issues are presented in the broader context of human experience with death and dying represented in the medical and anthropologic literature. Diagnostic and therapeutic approaches to special beliefs are illustrated. It is twelve days since we buried you. We feed you again, and give you new clothes. This is all we will feed and clothe you. Now go to the other side. We will stay on our side. Don't seek us and we won't seek you. Don't yearn for your relatives. don't call for us... A Lahu funery prayer (Lewis and Lewis, 1984, p. 192) Go. Go straight ahead Do not take anyone with you. Do not look back. When you reach your destination, talk for us. Tell them not to trouble us. Or not to come here and take anyone else away. A Cree funery prayer (Dusenberry, 1962, p.96) AMERICAN INDIAN AND ALASKA NATIVE MENTAL HEALTH RESEARCH 2(2), pp. 6-26 American Indian and Alaska Native Mental Health Research Copyright: Centers for American Indian and Alaska Native Health Colorado School of Public Health/University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus (www.ucdenver.edu/caianh)