Education as Transformation: Becoming a Healer Among the !Kung and the Fijians

Abstract

Current education and training of community mental health workers in the West have focused on the accumulation of knowledge and on healing technology. Richard Katz, through ethnographic work in the Kalahari Desert and the Fiji Islands, presents an alternative model of healer education that stresses the transformation of the healer's character. This transformation connects the healer to healing resources beyond the self, commits the healer to service in the community, and becomes the context within which healing knowledge and technology can be used while the healer remains a fully contributing member of the community, disavowing the accumulation of power for personal use.