The role of sensorial processes in Q’eqchi’ Maya healing: A case study of depression and bereavement
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Theory and research on the healing practices of Indigenous communities around the globe have often been influenced by models of "symbolic healing" that privilege the way patients consciously interpret or derive meaning from a healing encounter. In our work with a group of Q'eqchi' Maya healers in southern Belize, these aspects of "symbolic healing" are not always present. Such empirical observations force us to reach beyond models of symbolic healing to understand how healing might prove effective. Through the extended analysis of a single case study of rahil ch'ool or "depression," we propose to advance understanding of forms of healing which are not dependent on a shared "mythic" or "assumptive world" between patient and healer or where therapeutic efficacy does not rely on the patient's ability to "believe" in or consciously "know" what is occurring during treatment. In this we demonstrate how the body, as a site of experience, transformation, and communication, becomes the therapeutic locus in healing encounters of this kind and argue that embodied mediums of sensorial experience be considered central in attempts to understand healing efficacy.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.002 | 0.004 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.013 | 0.011 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.004 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.003 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".