Warm Fuzzies' in Healing

The Tradition of Embodied Body Touching in Folk Medical Encounters

Dados Bibliográficos

ID2377147
AutoresSujit Deogharia (0009-0000-2590-0142, Sidho-Kanho-Birsha University), Jaydeep Sengupta (0000-0001-7490-6196, Sidho-Kanho-Birsha University, autor correspondente)
Ano2025
Volume25
Fascículo2
Páginas387-399
Data de publicação2025-12-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoThe Oriental Anthropologist A Bi-annual International Journal of the Science of Man (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0972-558X • E-ISSN: 0976-3430
EditoraSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/0972558x251332190
OpenAlexW4410038416
IdiomaEN
Referências citadas24

Human touch ('warm fuzzy') has a tremendous potential to communicate and heal. Although body touching is measured and conditioned in the clinical world, in the folk tradition, it is spontaneous and grounded in experiences of intersubjectivity. Watching numerous medical encounters in an Indian rural setting, we confirm haptic modalities are not just therapeutic but help patients and healers to deeply engage in intersubjective interactions. It is an emotional journey of patients and healers who come close to each other through the sequential process of experiencing 'being-apart-from-oneanother,' followed by the feeling of 'being-with-one-another,' 'being-withinone-another,' and finally 'being-for-one-another.' We believe intersubjectivity is the key to healing that starts with free body touching; it is the healing praxis of modern times

Aesthetics · Art · Embodied cognition · Epistemology · Folklore, Mythology, and Literature Studies · History · Human-Animal Interaction Studies · Infant Health and Development · Philosophy · Psychology