The Case Study of an Urban Indigenous Healer in Taiwan

• Main Authors: Aude Fluckiger, 傅鳳翮
• Other Authors: Holm, David
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/28825771234603994023

碩士 === 國立政治大學 === 民族研究所 === 101 === Lisin is an Amis indigenous woman born in 1955 in Yuli, Hualien. From her precarious and disadvantaged social background, she persistently moved through ought her life and she today lives near an urban centre in northern Taiwan. This case study is investigating the very singular healing method she developed: beyond the apparent Amis ethnic feature, Lisin’s practice reflects mostly the important influence of the New Age phenomenon in Taiwan. Through the use of “sound healing” that consists in using Lisin’s own voice to “heal”, coupled with a dialogical interaction to guide the patient in her “inner journey” and the repetitive use of “possession” to provoke a catarctic process, Lisin also integrates many elements consistent with a wide range of traditions. As a result of all those foreign elements incorporated with local Taiwanese elements (i.e. Buddhist, Taoist, and indigenous), Lisin has constituted a new type of “healing practice”. Through a method of analysis focused on discourse, I propose to investigate “what she actually says” during her interactions with her patients, and analyse it through the lens of social theories of language (Bourdieu, Goffman, Hanks, Urban). Lisin’s discourse reveals in details how she establishes her authority in the therapeutic relationship, and the particular way she manages her relations with patients who first are “passionate” and “committed” to her, but generally leave very shortly after starting the healing process. Through further psychologically-oriented theories and ethnographies, this research investigates the constitutive mechanisms of the therapeutic relationship, and how the authority of the healer is established and maintained. The outcome of this investigation has been put in relation to the phenomenon of healing efficacy. Lisin is gaining notoriety in Taiwan and abroad, and the method of promotion she uses through Internet (Facebook) contributes to raise an international social network and clientèle. Her charismatic personality always attracts newcomers to her workshops and to her individual healing sessions, and the evolution of her healing practice and method of recruiting new patients reveals a shift of role from “spiritual figure” to that of “cult figure” with a sectarian tendency. Key words: symbolic ritual, shamanism, linguistic sociology, sound healing, New Age religions movements, urban healer 