[Socio-demographic and soci-professional profile of holistic therapists in Quebec]. / Profil socio-démographique et socio-professionnel des thérapeutes holistes au Québec.

A descriptive study of practitioners of holistic therapies in Quebec was done using a questionnaire mailed to the 954 therapists advertising publicly their services. The response rate was 37.9%. This paper presents the sociodemographic and socio-professional data collected. According to the findings, holistic therapists can be found in almost all regions of Quebec with higher concentrations in large urban centers. Their group is almost equally composed of men (51.7%) and women (48.0%) with an age mean of 40.1 years and with a mean of 7 years of experience in their practice. The practice of holistic therapies is the main occupation of most of these practitioners who use a very wide variety of therapies. Acupuncture and its derivatives followed by various types of massotherapies and naturopathy are the most commonly advertised therapies. The great majority of these therapists work in private practice and their average income before deductions was $21,856.38. Due to the legal status of these practices, 10.3% of the respondents declared they had been the object of lawsuits on the part of a professional corporation.

Home care and prevention.

This article focuses on the practices and conceptions of prevention in home care that were prevalent among Quebec families during the first half of the 20th century. The analysis is based on an examination of 585 recipes in which prevention was an objective. The analysis finds that there are three prevention purposes in home care: strengthening, which includes caregiving acts that maintain good health and fortify the whole or particular parts of the body; cleansing and purifying, which include any care aimed at eliminating accumulated substances from the body; and finally, warding off illness. The discussion insists on the holistic nature of these practices and on their relationship to women's work.

[Experience of cancer : a life story : un récit de vie.]. / Discours, savoir, expérience du cancer : un récit de vie.

The following report presents and analyzes the life story of a person suffering from cancer. The study consists of one of the areas examined in the course of a recent research that deals with the cultural aspects of cancer subjects in Quebec, using the clinical angle of medical anthropology. Material discussed here suggests an integration of the main analytical approaches that have been used throughout this project.

[Notes on a definition for alternatives practices and therapies in Quebec.]. / Notes pour une définition des pratiques alternatives et des thérapies douces au Québec.

The phenomenon of non-traditional therapies is firstly analyzed within the context of an increasing number of approaches in the therapeutic field in Quebec and the Western hemisphere and of the development of health care alternatives. The growth and diversity of alternative therapies legitimizes the need to establish an operational definition of this phenomenon, which is the framework of this article.

Discourse, knowledge and experience of cancer: a life story.

This paper proposes an exploration of interfaces between discourse, knowledge and experience of cancer within the life story of a patient suffering from cancer. This life story was collected in the context of a study in clinical anthropology on the cancer experience conducted within a French-speaking population of cancer patients in the province of Québec, Canada. The theoretical model was based upon the cultural hermeneutic approach of Good and Good. Perspectives for clinical practice are suggested concerning the status of popular medical knowledge in modern clinical culture, and the gap between patient experience and the discourse about cancer.