Analysis Of The Book ' The Spirit Catches You And You Fall Down ' Essay

In Hmong’s, they have their own traditional beliefs in which they hardly ever alter due to a different atmosphere. Some of the Hmong beliefs are they prefer traditional medicine, are culturally active, host ritual ceremonies, and are spirituality influenced. In the book The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, refers to the Hmong culture and their beliefs on medicine while their baby Lia Lee, is suffering from epilepsy in which they have a hard decision. Traditional Hmong’s have their own medicinal beliefs which they obey prior to obtaining Western medicine. The gulf between Western medicine and Hmong health beliefs is an impossible abyss. Also, The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down describes the life of Hmong refugees assimilating to

Lia is born of a loving Hmong family, and just three months into her life, begins to reveal epileptic symptoms. According to the Hmong community, the condition is curable, and the presence of spirits in such a patient’s soul is considered a blessing. However, American doctors in a community medical center fail to understand and appreciate Lia’s parents’ approach to the child’s disease, and are only interested in saving this child’s life. As the conflict develops, it becomes apparent that the child will not be healed; but this is not without the doctors realizing the importance of compromise. In this book, Anne Fadiman claims, “I have come to believe that her [Lia’s] life

What happens when two very different or even mutually exclusive cultural perspective are forced into contact with one another? In Anne Fadiman’s The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, there is a division between the shamanistic insubordinate cultural of Hmong refugees in Merced, California and the cold analytical approach of western medicine. In the early 1980s, the child of a Hmong refugee family in Merced, California is born with epilepsy, her name is Lia Lee. Anne Fadiman traces the interaction between these two cultures and Lia’s disease, she reviews that misunderstanding and miscommunication can have calamitous consequences for all involved. The author introduces many characters throughout the book and they all

With the loud noise of a slamming door the family believed that Lia’s spirit had been frightened and left the body causing the sickness she was experiencing. The family saw the seizures as an illness of some distinction. In the Hmong culture epileptics often become shamans. The chapter goes on to tell the child’s story about multiple trips to the Hospital Emergency Room. It speaks about the lack of communication surrounding the child’s symptoms. The family is unable, and the medical team unaware of the lack of communication about medical dosages. The doctors have no idea about parental refusal to give certain medicines due to mistrust, misunderstandings, and behavioral side effects. The doctors do not attempt to develop more empathy with the traditional Hmong lifestyle or try to learn more about the Hmong culture. The dichotomy between the Hmong's perceived spiritual factors and the Americans' perceived scientific factors comprises the overall theme.

In America, the number of federally identified tribes is 562 with every tribe having its own culture, belief system and practices. That is why there seem diverse type of behaviors among this population related to healthcare seeking and healthcare attitudes. Amongst the most common components that lead to this diversity in healthcare seeking behaviors is the role of culture which affects healthcare intervention, prevention, and care. So, it is very important to understand the diversity of culture in particular

The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down (1997) is an ethnography written by Anne Faidman. It tells the story of Lia Lee, a Hmong girl with severe epilepsy, and her family’s journey with managing the condition and the cultural barriers that posed great challenges in Lia’s care. Lia was diagnosed with epilepsy at age 1. It was her family’s opinion that the condition was a spiritual gift. Lia’s parents, Nao Kao and Foua, were wary of the American medical system, preferring to treat Lia in the Hmong way. Under the more spiritually focused care of her parents, Lia continued to have severe seizures; at the age of 4 ½, she slipped into a coma that would last the rest of her life. This book serves as a testament to the importance of cultural competency

Many live under the assumption that those who come to the United States want to become Americanized and assimilate to the melting pot our culture has formed into. This is the populations ethnocentric belief, which is the belief that the ways of one’s culture are superior to the ways of a different culture, that wants others to melt into the western ways. In Ann Faidman’s The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, Faidman fails to completely remain objective when demonstrating how cross-cultural misunderstandings create issues in the healthcare field, specifically between the Hmong and western cultures that created dire consequences between the Lee’s and their American doctors. Faidman uses her connections with the Hmong and the doctors who cared for them in order to disclose the different views, beliefs and practices the Hmong and Western cultures practiced. With her attempt to be culturally relative to the situation, Faidman discusses the series of events and reasons as to why the Lee’s faced the fate that they did and how it parallels to the ethnocentrism in the health care system.

1. The client system, in this case the Lee family, defines Lia’s seizures as both a spiritual and physical ailment. According to Fadiman (1997), “…the noise of the door had been so profoundly frightening that her soul had fled her body and become lost. They recognized the resulting symptoms as qaug dab peg, which means ‘the spirit catches you and you fall down’”(p.20). To the Lee family, Lia’s condition was as revered as it was frightening. While a person with qaug dab peg was traditionally held in high esteem in the Hmong culture, it was also terrifying enough that the Lee’s rushed Lia to the emergency room more than once in the first few months

The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, by Anne Fadiman, is the story of two very different cultures lacking understanding for one another leading to a tragedy due to cultural incompetence. Today in America there are very many different cultures. Health care providers need to be aware of cultural diversity and sensitivity when caring for patients. If a health care provider is not sensitive towards a patient’s culture it can cause a relationship of mistrust to form, lead to barriers in the plan of care, and increase health care cost. The current guidelines to promote cultural competence in the clinical setting include completing a cultural diversity self-assessment, identify the need of the population served, evaluate barriers in the community and practice, educate staff to cultural diversities, schedule longer appointments, clarify limitations, and identify alternatives offered (Cash & Glass, 2014).

The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman is about the cross-cultural ethics in medicine. The book is about a small Hmong child named Lia Lee, who had epilepsy. Epilepsy is called, quag dab peg1 in the Hmong culture that translates to the spirit catches you and you fall down. In the Hmong culture this illness is sign of distinction and divinity, because most Hmong epileptics become shaman, or as the Hmong call them, txiv neeb2. These shamans are special people imbued with healing spirits, and are held to those having high morale character, so to Lia's parents, Foua Yang and Nao Kao Lee, the disease was both a gift and a curse. The main question in this case was could Lia have survived if her parent's and the doctors overcame

The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down is the story by author Anne Fadiman, which explores the clash between a small county hospital in California and a refugee family from Laos over the care of Lia Lee, a Hmong child diagnosed with severe epilepsy. Lia’s parents and her doctors both wanted what was best for Lia, but the lack of communication between them led to tragedy.1The lack of communication due to cultural misunderstanding, mistrust, lack empathy, and poor health literacy led to care being comprised for Lia, which also affected both her parents and healthcare providers.

In ‘The Spirit Catches You And You Fall Down’, Lia, a Hmong baby girl, is born to a Hmong family living in California as refugees away from their war torn land in Laos. In Laos the Lee’s where farmers and lived in the country according to their Hmong traditions and beliefs. In California they barely understood the language, much less Western culture or medicinal practices. In Hmong tradition, illness was seen as a spiritual problem rather than a physical problem and a Shaman that practiced spiritual ceremonies and used natural remedies was sought to prevent or cure certain illnesses and/or diseases; so when Lia suffered her first seizure at the age of 3 months and was taken to Mercer

The Hmong cultural/religious belief in shamanistic animism claim that wicked spirits are continually searching human souls, mostly those of defenseless or unappreciated children. For Hmong culture, epilepsy is known as qaug dab peg which means, "the spirit catches you and you fall down" in English (Fadiman 1997), which epileptic invasions are seen as affirmation of the epileptic's capability to enter and stay temporarily into the spirit world (unconsciousness). In Hmong

Their view about epilepsy therefore reflects their cultural belief. After Lia was born a ceremony was performed in which strings were tied on Lia’s wrist in order to “bind her soul securely to her body” (Fadiman, 1997, p.11). This is why they may have believed that her soul left after her sister banged the door, and that this must have caused Lia’s sickness.

“In the Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down”, Anne Fadiman explores the subject of cross cultural misunderstanding. This she effectively portrays using Lia, a Hmong, her medical history, the misunderstandings created by obstacles of communication, the religious background, the battle with modernized medical science and cultural anachronisms. Handling an epileptic child, in a strange land in a manner very unlike the shamanistic animism they were accustomed to, generated many problems for her parents. The author dwells on the radically different cultures to highlight the necessity for medical communities to have an understanding of the immigrants when treating them.