Benzendo o passado, restaurando o presente: práticas populares em saúde sob o olhar de benzedores de um município do Curimataú paraibano.

Abstract

For a long time, popular medicine as well as prayers have been presented as alternative forms of recovery, not only for one’s physical state, but also for his/her emotional and spiritual well being, in order to free people from the evils that afflict them. With the emergence and modernization of biomedical practices, healing practices have lost their legitimacy through communities, steadily decreasing demand. The gaps between traditional popular healing and modern health care have become then increasingly evident. Is it possible that these two systems may one day work alongside each other? Upon this question, this study aimed to characterize healers in a city of Curimataú paraibano. The goal of the study is to understand what makes them special in their community and above all, lead us to understand how this secular practice has endured over the years before scientific principles were developed. This was a qualitative research which used a semi-structured questionnaire with guiding questions for the purpose of the study, applied during an interview at the residence of each healer, recorded and transcribed in full. Data analysis was initially done descriptively and later performed using a content analysis method. A total of 8 healers who live in the county participated in the study, with participants from both urban and rural areas. In order to optimize results, healers were placed in five categories ranging from the beginning of popular healing practices all the way to their association with modern health systems. The results allowed us to understand that popular healing practices generally offered answers to inexplicable questions within modern health care. It was often noticed that popular knowledge is fought against by health professionals when it should be embraced and used to increase knowledge based on scientific research. An approach such as this would allow for a link to be established between these two approaches so that proposals could be created towards a broader health care approach, empowering the reinvention of methods for the service of collective welfare.