In the waiting room of the terreiro: an investigation with Umbanda adepts with health complaints

Abstract Health complaints are an important part of the religious demands of various beliefs, especially Umbanda in Brazil. This ethnopsychological study analyzes how Umbanda adepts with health complaints perceive the health-disease process. A total of 20 Umbanda practitioners from two terreiros located in a medium-sized municipality in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil, were selected as participants. The corpus was constituted by semi-structured interviews transcribed and organized according to the thematic analysis. Ambivalence was observed in the process of understanding the illness and the therapeutic trajectories embedded in the reports of these followers,. From such medical explanations related to the physical body and medicine also emerge spiritual narratives related to the inner world and to mental health. Despite referencing the work of incorporating entities, criticism is also given to the way health professionals distance themselves from religiosity/spirituality, both their own and that of the patient. Regardless of such ambivalence, these adepts express an integrated notion of health when they seek care in the terreiro, mixing formal and scientific elements with religious expressions, wherein Umbanda is a safe space for this diversity. This movement reaffirms Umbanda as a diverse space in which different kinds of reasoning can live.

【摘要】健康诉求是各类宗教信仰，尤其是巴西翁班达（Umbanda）的重要宗教诉求组成部分。本项民族心理学研究分析了存在健康诉求的翁班达信徒如何认知健康-疾病进程。研究选取了巴西米纳斯吉拉斯州一座中型城市内两家翁班达祭坊（terreiro）的20名信徒作为研究参与者。研究语料库由经转录并按照主题分析法整理的半结构化访谈文本构成。在这些信徒的口述报告中，研究者观察到他们在理解疾病与治疗路径的过程中存在矛盾心态：既包含与肉身及现代医学相关的医学阐释，也涌现出与内在世界及心理健康相关的灵性叙事。尽管这些信徒会提及神灵附体的相关内容，但他们同时也批评健康从业者疏离自身及患者的宗教/灵性信仰。尽管存在这种认知矛盾，这些信徒在祭坊寻求疗愈时，仍表达出一种整合式的健康观念——将正式的科学医疗元素与宗教表达相结合，而翁班达正是容纳这种多元性的安全空间。这种融合性实践进一步印证了翁班达作为多元空间的属性，不同的认知逻辑均可在此共生。