[Can western medicine resolve psychological problems in ethnic regions outside Europe? 2 cases from the region of Borneo-Sarawak]

The case histories of two patients healed by animist treatment in the Iban tradition are reviewed by two psychiatrists. Both psychiatrists point to the difficulties in the evaluation of the background of the disease and of the mechanisms of its treatment by people not aware of the cultural and sociological aspects of eastern civilisation. The diagnostic classification of both patients by means of western medicine and the possible treatment of their disease are discussed. The failure of western medicine to understand the psychiatrical aspects of animist religions in the pathogenesis of diseases raises the question whether western medicine will be able to cope with the health problems of Iban (and other animists) sufficiently when their animist tradition will be replaced by western civilisation.