BACKGROUND

The Ifontok people are an ethnolinguistic group in the Mountain Province of the Philippines, for whom constructing and occupying a new house symbolizes the fulfillment of personal aspirations and reflects cultural traditions and beliefs that shape community life, worldviews, and social behavior.

This study examined the house construction rituals of the Ifontok people and their influence on health beliefs, highlighting the interconnectedness of culture, environment, and well-being.

A qualitative ethnographic design was employed. Six participants were interviewed between February 2021 and June 2022 until data saturation was reached. Colaizzi’s seven-step method was used for the systematic analysis of cultural experiences.

The Ifontok perform rituals before, during, and after house construction, as well as upon occupying a new home. Rooted in traditional beliefs, these rituals aim to ensure structural stability, invite prosperity, and safeguard holistic health. Beyond their symbolic function, the rituals serve as rites of passage that foster psychological reassurance, emotional resilience, and social cohesion. They frame health as a balance of physical, mental, and spiritual well-being, while adaptive strategies address challenges in sustaining these practices amid modern influences.

Ifontok house construction rituals integrate practical building practices, spiritual beliefs, and communal welfare. They promote mindful living, psychological well-being, and environmental awareness, offering insights for educators and healthcare practitioners working with Indigenous communities.

The Emergency Medicine Recipes in Local Medicinals (鄕藥救急方, Hyang'yak Kugŭpbang) (c. 14th century) is known to be one of the oldest Korean medical textbooks that exists in its entirety. This study challenges conventional perceptions that have interpreted this text by using modern concepts, and it seeks to position the medical activities of the late Koryŏ Dynasty 高麗 (918–1392) to the early Chosŏn Dynasty 朝鮮 (1392–1910) in medical history with a focus on this text. According to existing studies, Emergency Medicine Recipes in Local Medicinals is a strategic compromise of the Korean elite in response to the influx of Chinese medical texts and thus a medical text from a “periphery” of the Sinitic world. Other studies have evaluated this text as a medieval publication demonstrating stages of transition to systematic and rational medicine and, as such, a formulary book 方書 that includes primitive elements. By examining past medicine practices through “modern” concepts based on a dichotomous framework of analysis — i.e., modernity vs. tradition, center vs. periphery, science vs. culture — such conventional perceptions have relegated Emergency Medicine Recipes in Local Medicinals to the position of a transitional medieval publication meaningful only for research on hyangchal 鄕札 (Chinese character-based writing system used to record Korean during the Silla Dynasty 新羅 [57 BC–935 AD] to the Koryŏ Dynasty). It is necessary to overcome this dichotomous framework in order to understand the characteristics of East Asian medicine. As such, this study first defines “medicine 醫”, an object of research on medical history, as a “special form of problem-solving activities” and seeks to highlight the problematics and independent medical activities of the relevant actors. Through this strategy (i.e., texts as solutions to problems), this study analyzes Emergency Medicine Recipes in Local Medicinals to determine its characteristics and significance. Ultimately, this study argues that Emergency Medicine Recipes in Local Medicinals was a problem-solving method for the scholar-gentry 士人層 from the late Koryŏ Dynasty to the early Chosŏn Dynasty, who had adopted a new cultural identity, to perform certain roles on the level of medical governance and constitute medical praxis that reflected views of both the body and materials and an orientation distinguished from those of the so-called medicine of Confucian physicians 儒醫, which was the mainstream medicine of the center. Intertwined at the cultural basis of the treatments and medical recipes included in Emergency Medicine Recipes in Local Medicinals were aspects such as correlative thinking, ecological circulation of life force, transformation of materiality through contact, appropriation of analogies, and reasoning of sympathy. Because “local medicinals 鄕藥” is understood in Emergency Medicine Recipes in Local Medicinals as referring to objects easily available from one's surroundings, it signifies locality referring to the ease of acquisition in local areas rather than to the identity of the state of Koryŏ or Chosŏn. As for characteristics revealed by this text's methods of implementing medicine, Korean medicine in terms of this text consisted largely of single-ingredient formulas using diverse medicinal ingredients easily obtainable from one's surroundings rather than making use of general drugs as represented by materia medica 本草 or of multiple-ingredient formulas. In addition, accessible tools, full awareness of the procedures and processes of the guidelines, procedural rituals, and acts of emergency treatment (first aid) were more important than the study of the medical classics, moral cultivation, and coherent explanations emphasized in categorical medical texts. Though Emergency Medicine Recipes in Local Medicinals can be seen as an origin of the tradition of emergency medicine in Korea, it differs from medical texts that followed which specializing in emergency medicine to the extent that it places toxicosis 中毒 before the six climatic factors 六氣 in its classification of diseases.
Asian Continental Ancestry Group ; Ceremonial Behavior ; Classification ; Emergencies ; Emergency Medicine ; Emergency Treatment ; Far East ; Humans ; Korea ; Materia Medica ; Medicine, East Asian Traditional ; Methods ; Publications ; Thinking ; Writing

Circumcision is one of the most common rituals in Jewish and Islamic cultures. It may also be performed for phimosis correction or the treatment of recurrent balanitis. Although circumcision is considered to be a technically easy and safe surgical procedure with no significant risk, it may lead to severe complications such as necrotizing fasciitis or total penis amputation. In this report, we present a case of penis amputation at two levels occurring with third-degree burns due to electrocautery during circumcision. Although penile replantation was attempted, it was unsuccessful due to burn damage to the veins. After restoration of the functional structures, the penis was buried in the inguinal area by reepithelization to maintain blood circulation. The recovery of the penis was successful. This case is presented as a novel example of groin flap surgery to achieve a functionally and aesthetically acceptable outcome in a salvage operation for a penis with significant traumatic injury, which has not been previously reported in the literature.
Amputation ; Balanitis ; Blood Circulation ; Burns ; Ceremonial Behavior ; Circumcision, Male ; Electrocoagulation ; Fasciitis, Necrotizing ; Female ; Groin ; Islam ; Male ; Penis ; Phimosis ; Replantation ; Veins

Everyone frequently dreams of "losing ones' tooth". According to folk tradition, this tooth-loss dream has been regarded as bad dream which foretells the death of the dreamer's important relatives, and this is not different between oriental and occidental cultures. Freud related this dream to guilt about masturbation and fear of anxiety in the context of the Oedipus complex. However, there appears to be no difference between the frequency of this type of dream between males and females, as shown by reports from male and female internet portal users as well as previous reports in the literature. Considering other psychoanalytic interpretations, and the meaning of tooth in the folklore literature, or rituals about handling the lost tooth in the world-wide tradition, the tooth-loss dream seems to reflect a universal and archetypal anxiety over losing something important. At the most fundamental level, the tooth-losing may contain the most and first important losing or separating event, that is, separation from the mother's body. The loss of important body parts (castration) or body functions, or other personal losses, may be attached to the same line of memory and emotion. So, the full meaning of the tooth-loss dream can be uncovered by considering both the archetypal and personal layer of dreamers' experiences.
Anxiety ; Ceremonial Behavior ; Collodion ; Dreams ; Female ; Folklore ; Guilt ; Handling (Psychology) ; Human Body ; Humans ; Internet ; Male ; Masturbation ; Memory ; Oedipus Complex ; Psychoanalytic Interpretation ; Tooth

Asperger syndrome (AS) is a disorder of early childhood characterized by impaired social interaction, communication difficulties, play and imagination deficits and a range of routines and rituals. A review of the literature explores current issues concerning the diagnosis of AS. Despite its increasing popularity as a distinct condition, it seems to be still controversial to what extent AS differs from high-functioning autism. Especially in European perspectives, AS is a variant of autism typically occurring in high-functioning individuals, and not a separate disorder. However, the validity of AS as a different diagnostic entity has been recognized through several lines of evidence in the US. AS and nonverbal learning disabilities are often confused with some authors and practitioners not differentiating at all, others perceiving as different points along a continuum, and still others seeing them as different, albeit overlapping, disorders. The major difference is that AS is a pervasive developmental disorder, with chronically restricted repetitive and stereotyped patterns of behavior, interests, and activities, which are far beyond the narrow range of activities, social awkwardness, and slightly eccentric behaviors that are sometimes found individuals with nonverbal learning disabilities.
Asperger Syndrome ; Autistic Disorder ; Ceremonial Behavior ; Imagination ; Interpersonal Relations ; Learning Disorders

PURPOSE: This ethnography in communication aimed to explore the changes in consciousness on time and temporality as an elderly became older. This study focused on time as a primary message systems of Edward Hall. METHODS: The assumption of the study was that the aging body as an expression of biological time is a meta of physical, personal, and social time. Data were collected from iterative fieldwork in a clan between Jan, 1990 and April, 2007. The key informants were 13 women and men aged 70 years old or more at the beginning of study. Changes in physical time and temporality as the women's body declined in its physical function was analyzed. As the cultural context, informants' every life and the history of the clan were also analyzed. RESULTS: The meta-time of the informants were constituted as follows: In the low-contextual dimension, physical time perceived as longer and personal time perceived as shorter than they were young; In high-contextual dimension, informant and residents had a polychronic perspective and aged-centered time perspectives.; In the supernatural dimension of time, sacred time were reinforced by rituals. Informants extended temporality to their springs' world and ancestors' world. CONCLUSION: As the informants recognized slugged body movements and time-limited present life, their views on their life world towards the future of spring and of the sacred world of ancestors. Thereby, their identity as a member of a clan was reinforced. This result informed us on what we should focus on when caring with older women.
Aged ; Aging ; Anthropology, Cultural ; Ceremonial Behavior ; Consciousness ; Female ; Gastropoda ; Humans ; Male

PURPOSE: This ethnography in communication aimed to explore the changes in consciousness on time and temporality as an elderly became older. This study focused on time as a primary message systems of Edward Hall. METHODS: The assumption of the study was that the aging body as an expression of biological time is a meta of physical, personal, and social time. Data were collected from iterative fieldwork in a clan between Jan, 1990 and April, 2007. The key informants were 13 women and men aged 70 years old or more at the beginning of study. Changes in physical time and temporality as the women's body declined in its physical function was analyzed. As the cultural context, informants' every life and the history of the clan were also analyzed. RESULTS: The meta-time of the informants were constituted as follows: In the low-contextual dimension, physical time perceived as longer and personal time perceived as shorter than they were young; In high-contextual dimension, informant and residents had a polychronic perspective and aged-centered time perspectives.; In the supernatural dimension of time, sacred time were reinforced by rituals. Informants extended temporality to their springs' world and ancestors' world. CONCLUSION: As the informants recognized slugged body movements and time-limited present life, their views on their life world towards the future of spring and of the sacred world of ancestors. Thereby, their identity as a member of a clan was reinforced. This result informed us on what we should focus on when caring with older women.
Aged ; Aging ; Anthropology, Cultural ; Ceremonial Behavior ; Consciousness ; Female ; Gastropoda ; Humans ; Male

OBJECTIVE: Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is one of the more common serious mental illnesses. Effective psychological and drug treatments are available for the distressing, time-consuming, repetitive thoughts and rituals and the associated functional impairment. The decision of a treatment, however, is not easy because of the various clinical features and many treatment options. Therefore, practice guidelines and algorithms have been developed in some countries to provide the proper information to clinicians. We sought to develop the Korean Treatment Algorithm Project for OCD 2007 (KTAP-OCD 2007). METHODS: The survey questionnaire based on the Expert Consensus Guideline Series-Obsessive Compulsive disorder (1997) and was developed through modification and review by a study group for the KTAP-OCD 2007. Twenty-four (70.6%) of the 34 members of the review committee completed the survey. RESULTS: For the initial treatment of OCD, all of the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI)monotherapies, cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), and SSRI+CBT were included in the first treatment options. Fluoxetine, sertraline, paroxetine, citalopram, and fluvoxamine were included among the available SSRIs. The treatment for resistant OCD, maintenance treatment, treatment for comorbidities, and CBT for various clinical symptoms were also evaluated by the questionnaire. DISCUSSION: Most experts presented a consensus opinion as to the initial treatment of OCD, some nonconsensual opinions were expressed and gaps occurred between research data and clinical usage in some steps. And there are some differences were seen between Western countries and Korea. The KTAP-OCD 2007 is the first algorithm developed for OCD treatment in Korea, and our hope is that the KTAP-OCD will assist clinicians and researchers.
Advisory Committees ; Ceremonial Behavior ; Citalopram ; Comorbidity ; Consensus ; Fluoxetine ; Fluvoxamine ; Hope ; Korea ; Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder* ; Paroxetine ; Surveys and Questionnaires ; Serotonin ; Sertraline

This study examined the clinical features of patients with obsessive-compulsive disorders who had been admitted to the Department of psychiatry, Seoul National Univ. Hospital from 1980 to 1995, using retrospective investigation of medical records. The subjects were 26 patients(male 22, female 4) who were compatible with the criteria of OCD by DSM-III-R. The results were as follows: 1) The most common obsessive thinking was pathologic doubt, followed by contamination, need for symmetry, somatic and sexual obsession, religious and aggressive obsession in descending order. Twenty three percent of patients had multiple obsessions. 2) The most common compulsive ritual was checking, followed by washing, need to ask and confess, symmetry and precision, counting in descending order. Thrity nine percents of patients had multiple rituals. 3) Depression, schizophrenia, Tourette's syndrome and tic disorder were the co-existing disorder with obsessive compulsive disorder. Cormorbid personality disorders in OCD were obsessive personality disorder, borderline personality disorder, schizotypal personality disorder and passive-aggressive personality disorder. 4) The course in OCD with co-existing disorder was worse than that in pure OCD. 5) The verbal IQ was significantly higher than the performance IQ checked by KWIS in obsessive compulsive disorder.
Borderline Personality Disorder ; Ceremonial Behavior ; Compulsive Behavior ; Depression ; Female ; Humans ; Inpatients* ; Medical Records ; Obsessive Behavior ; Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder* ; Passive-Aggressive Personality Disorder ; Personality Disorders ; Retrospective Studies ; Schizophrenia ; Schizotypal Personality Disorder ; Seoul ; Thinking ; Tic Disorders ; Tourette Syndrome

Death and dying of human being is a comprehensive system, and death orientation, the subjective meaning related to every component of the death system is developed throughout life. this study was designed and carried out to identify, describe and classify the orientations of Korean adult toward the death system. In an attempt to measure the subjective meaning of death and dying, unstructured Q-methodology was used. The 65 Q-statements developed by Kim(1994), used by Kim(1994) and Park(1996) were adopted as Q-population and 39 Q-statements were selected by the three researchers for Q-items for this study. Thirty-three P-samples were sampled from P-population of literature Korean men and women, 35 and 55 years of age, lived in urban Korea for the last 10 years. Sorting of the 39 Q-items according to the level of personal agreement, and a forced normal distribution into the 9 levels were carried out by the P-samples. the Z-scores of the Q-sort data were computed, and the principal components factor analysis by PC-QUANL Program were carried out. the demographic, socio-cultural and health-related attributes of the P-samples were descriptively analysed. Eight types of death orientation were identified : Type I ; "naturalist". Six P-samples. Death is a natural phenomena, to be accepted as it is and to follow its natural course. Prefer to be informed of all facts and possibilities concerning the course of dying and death to occur to self. Type II ; "life-after-life negator". Three P-samples. Time and process of death is the destiny of each person. Death means 'darkness' and 'end to every thing, the absolute end'. Yet, wish physical integrity at the dying and after death. Type III ; "life-after-life believer". Six P-samples. Men are travellers passing by this life bound to the life-after-life. Priority concerns are on the activities. to prepare self for the eternal life ahead. Disregard premature and sudden death. Type IV ; "here-now believer". Five P-samples. Positive regard to the cremation of the body and donation of the organs on death. Regard religious and customary post-mortem rituals meaningless. Negate life-after life. Type V ; "believer of rituals". Five P-samples. Death being accepted as a part of a natural end to, and destiny of human life. Concerned to ensure a dignified end to personal life and dignified post-mortem rituals. Type VI ; "Realist"(derived from Type I). Tow P-samples. Life and death as universal reality. The abrupt death at golden age at the peak of happiness is favored to avoid inevitable physical and mental distress of self and the family. Agreed to the cremation of the body. disregard rituals. Type VII ; "Fatalist"(derived from Type II). Five P-samples. Not favored, yet, all man are destined to death, the inevitable end of all living beings. to ensure dignified end by personal consummation, information. on one's dying and imminent death are to be shared. Type VIII ; "reality avoider"(derived from Type III. One P-sample. Negative to longevity, artificial prolongation of, meaningless and distressful life. Highly positive to post-mortem organ donation.
Adult* ; Ceremonial Behavior ; Cremation ; Death, Sudden ; Female ; Happiness ; Humans ; Korea ; Longevity ; Male ; Q-Sort ; Tissue and Organ Procurement