Therapy Managing in Botswana

Abstract

Varied and apparently ideologically incompatible systems of health care are available in many developing countries. Patients move freely between them, receiving care serially or simultaneously from different types of healers. Therapy managing is an anthropological term used to describe how choice of health care is made by an informal group that forms around the patient. The author's experiences while running a community-based psychiatric treatment program in Botswana are discussed in terms of his interaction with patients' managing groups.