
See Related
Anthropology JournalsEmail Newsletters
Sign up for our email newsletters to get customized updates on new Berghahn publications.
Illness and Enlightenment
Exploring Tibetan Perspectives on Madness in Text and Everyday Life
Susannah Deane
288 pages, 10 ills., bibliog., index
ISBN 978-1-80539-840-0 $135.00/£104.00 / Hb / Published (February 2025)
eISBN 978-1-80539-841-7 eBook
Reviews
“The book takes up an interesting, important, complicated and somewhat understudied aspect of Tibetan cultural and religious life.” • David DiValerio, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Description
Tibetan understandings of nyoné — ‘madness’— encompass a broad range of concepts. Perspectives on the causation and treatment of madness as an illness are informed by Tantric and medical understandings of mind-body structure and (dys)functioning, as well as people’s relationships with non-human entities. In addition, ‘madness’ may be seen as a sign of enlightenment in the case of some Tantric practitioners. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in the Tibetan region of Amdo in northwest China, as well as examination of Tibetan medical and religious texts, Illness and Enlightenment explores the multi-faceted concept of nyoné through key Tibetan concepts of wind, heart, and mind, as well as human-spirit relationships.
Susannah Deane completed her PhD at Cardiff University. Her interdisciplinary research spans medical anthropology and religious studies, and focuses on perspectives on mental health and illness within Tibetan communities in China and in exile. Her publications include Tibetan Medicine, Buddhism and Psychiatry: Mental Health and Healing in a Tibetan Exile Community (Carolina Academic Press, 2018). This work is based on research conducted during a British Academy Postdoctoral Research Fellowship at University of Bristol.
Subject: Medical AnthropologyAnthropology of Religion
Area: Asia
Contents
Download ToC (PDF)