Le décodage biologique. Diffusion d’une nouvelle médecine non-conventionnelle contre le cancer

• Main Authors: Aline Sarradon-Eck, Coralie Caudullo
• Format: Article
• Language: fra
• Published: Association Anthropologie Médicale Appliquée au Développement et à la Santé 2014-07-01
• Series: Anthropologie & Santé
• Subjects: cancer; psychosomatic; medicalization; networks
• Online Access: http://journals.openedition.org/anthropologiesante/539

New alternative therapy called « bio-decoding » based on a psychosomatic perception of cancer appeared in the 1990s. Using a critical approach, the article aims to understand the therapy’s growth. Drawing on D. Fassin’s work about ethnopsychiatric networks, this paper analyses the construction of bio-decoding and bio-therapist legitimacy, by unravelling the networks which allow for theory dissemination and enable the practice’s growth. The article shows that these new therapies are deeply rooted in social and cultural models of cancer etiology and coping, which allow or reinforce approval and appropriation of alternative psychosomatic thought.