Unsuccessful Practitioners in A Bicultural Guatemalan Community*

That religious beliefs, acts, and experiences may and frequently do have psychotherapeutic value is a well established fact in the psychological and anthropological literature. In considering the psychotherapeutic functions of religion in the societies of non-literate peoples characteristically studies by the anthropologist, one dimension of the problem may be of special interest to the professionals in our society concerned with mental health: the role of the religious specialist as therapist. While it would probably be going too far to label the religious specialist the “professional colleague” of the psychotherapist, despite certain similarities in their functions, it is nonetheless patent that both kinds of practitioners hare a number of common “professional” problems. One such problem is that both kinds of practitioners, in the enactment and realization of their specialized roles, normally find it expedient to gain and maintain the confidence of those whom they feel qualified to help.

It is the author's impression that most descriptions of religious practitioners qua therapists in the anthropological literature deal with specialists who do, for the most part, gain and hold the confidence of those they serve and who, in consequence, are often able to be of temporary or lasting benefit to individuals with whom they treat. But if the professional psychotherapist can derive intellectual profit from