‘There is power in belief’: Creating space for psychiatric illness and healing in the Tibetan context

Deane, Susannah 2014. ‘There is power in belief’: Creating space for psychiatric illness and healing in the Tibetan context. SHARE: Studies in History, Archaeology, Religion and Conservation 1 (1) , pp. 40-48. 10.18573/share.4

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Abstract

This paper examines Tibetan perspectives on the ‘boundary’ between individuals and their environment, and considers some of the ways in which it can be implicated in the causation and treatment of psychiatric illness. It is based upon ethnographic research conducted within a Tibetan exile community in Darjeeling, Northeast India, which elucidates how some of the Tibetan textual concepts of psychiatric illness play out in practice for lay Tibetans. Research demonstrates that Tibetan perceptions of a rather ‘porous’ boundary between the macrocosm and microcosm can both explain certain types of psychiatric illness such as ‘madness’ (Tib.: ‘smyo nad’), and create a sphere for their healing through, for example, the ritual subjugation or ‘exorcism’ of malevolent deities. It emphasises the significant roles of ‘belief’ and a relationship or ‘connection’ with the environment (and the deities which reside within it) in this process, and considers some of the meanings of this concept in the Tibetan context.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Publisher:	Cardiff University Press
ISSN:	2055-4893
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	7 September 2017
Last Modified:	05 Feb 2026 16:11
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/104450

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