Spirits in the Consulting Room: Eight Tales of Healing

For any country that has a large and diverse migrant population, it is a struggle to connect these people to the country's institutions, including the healthcare system, which can be overwhelming in its complexity. Cultural and language barriers often make it difficult for doctors to fully understand the symptoms of their migrant patients, reach accurate diagnoses, or properly treat their suffering. Thus, medical practitioners must attempt new, innovative practices in order to reach patients where they are and convince them to accept treatment from doctors they don't totally understand. In France, Serge Bouznah and Catherine Lewertowski have pioneered one such practice-that of transcultural mediation. Drawn from two decades of their experience with transcultural mediation, Spirits in the Consulting Room tells the stories of eight patients-mainly migrants-and their families. Each chapter focuses on a different patient, and Christelle, Djibril, Moncef, Alhassane, Jacinthe, Amy, Cyril, Alice, and Pierre leap off the page as distinct people with unique situations. Together, these chapters reveal how patients' comprehension of their symptoms is shaped by their cultural background, while recounting the challenges of translating that into terms the doctors can grasp. The book shows how trained transcultural mediators can help to redress the power imbalance between doctors and the migrants they treat, providing patients with advocates who respect the authority of their background and experiences and don't just take the side of the medical professionals. The groundbreaking insights modeled in this book can be applied to any medical situation where doctors and patients find themselves speaking different languages.

Table of Contents:
Series Foreword by Javier I. Escobar Foreword by Jaswant Guzder Prologue: "When I was two years old, I killed my grandmother" Introduction 1. The Title Deed of Grandfather Léon 2. An Angry Man 3. "If You're a Human Being, Change Your Skin Immediately!" 4. Who Will Carry the Parasol for Me? 5. When the Black Cat Bit 6. The Curse 7. Leave Me Out of All This! 8. A Defaced Skin Conclusion Notes References Index

About the Author :
SERGE BOUZNAH is a public health physician specializing in transcultural clinical practice. In 1988 he founded one of the first services of transcultural mediation in France. He is currently the director of the Centre Babel at the Hôpital Cochin-Paris and heads the department for mediation practice in transcultural situations at the Université Paris Descartes.    CATHERINE LEWERTOWSKI is a physician who specializes in transcultural approaches. She currently oversees the primary health centers for mothers and children in the department of Seine Saint-Denis. She is the author of Soigner: Le virus et le fétiche (Cure: The virus and the fetish, with Tobie Nathan), Les enfants de Moissac, 1939–1945 (The children of Moissac, 1939–1945), and Papi Nougat n'est pas mort (Papi Nougat is not dead). CARMELLA ABRAMOWITZ MOREAU studied social anthropology and English literature at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. She holds a Graduate Certificate in Teaching English as a Second Language from McGill University and an MA in translation from the University of London. She lives and works in Paris.  

Review :
"This wonderful book is a compelling invitation to listen closely, not only to the complexity of human narratives of suffering, but also to the way they weave across cultural and social divides. The plurality and beauty of the stories evoked here contribute to this weaving, building bridges between universal culture and the individual human experience. An inspiring book, worth fully inhabiting and meditating upon, which also provides critical tools we can use to improve our healing practices."— Cécile Rousseau, co-editor of Working with Refugee Families: Trauma and Exile in Family Relationships "The Spirits in the Consulting Room is a must-read for all who wish to immerse themselves in eight heart-wrenching cases that rely on transcultural or intercultural mediation in healthcare. A great tool to equip healthcare providers or anyone working with diverse patients, this book vividly showcases how to consider a more intercultural approach and empower patients with the agency they need to help transform their conditions from a human perspective."— Izabel E. T. de V. Souza, author of Intercultural Mediation in Healthcare: From the Professional Medical Interpreters' Perspec