The emerging worldview of the indigenous Cordillera peoples of selected provinces: Implications for psychotherapy

• Main Author: Janetius, Servasious Thomas
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2003
• Subjects: Indigenous peoples; Psychotherapy; Mountain people > Philippines; Ethnology > Philippines; Healing > Folklore; Bontoks (Philippine people); Ifugaos; Counseling Psychology
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_doctoral/919
• Institution: De La Salle University

This dissertation has two objectives. First, it seeks to identify the emerging worldview of indigenous Cordillera people and their health concepts and practices. Second, it identifies the necessity of integrating the worldview of the indigenous Cordillera people in counseling to bring about a successful psychotherapy model.The research was undertaken in the Benguet, Ifugao and Mountain Provinces of the Cordillera administrative region. Interviews were conducted with 51 key informants from the Cordillera and 420 secondary informants of the region who had undergone traditional healings. Besides, a survey was done with 380 respondents from the general population of the Cordillera region to reaffirm and verify the emerging belief system and present trends regarding their health practices. The grounded theory method was utilized throughout this research program, with ethnographic style of interview and observation being the primary sources of data.The results show that the emerging worldview originates from the conflated version of Christian and traditional religious beliefs. The presumed causes of sicknesses include both biological and spiritual and therefore prayer, customary rituals and reconciliation are used as healing practices together with modern medicines. Prayer, customary rituals and reconciliation can be considered in developing indigenous, culture-specific psychotherapy, which would help therapists to have a client-oriented therapy. By such adaptation and a resulting indigenous client-oriented therapy is hoped to serve a large underserved population of clients with religious beliefs by providing a treatment that is tailor-made for their needs.