The ethology of mythical images in healthcare biotechnology: A methodological approach to uncovering ritualized behavior in the evolution of sickness and healing

Drawing on biblical and mythical imagery employed in the marketing and advocacy of healthcare biotechnology, this study is a methodological exercise in combining the diachronic methods of ethology and of symbolic structural anthropology. A medical anthropology of emotions is described as a fourth body, an evolutionary body and an addition to the individual, social, and political bodies described by Schepher-Hughes and Lock. This leads to an investigation of Fabrega's sickness and healing adaptation model which assumes a neurobiological substrate for responses to disease and injury. Images used in healthcare biotechnology demonstrate formal and contextual features which show homologous development cross-culturally. This suggests the presence of phylogenetically developed social conventions for sickness and healing adaptations. At least for the healer/caregivers, these conventions are about the ritualized expression of ambivalent approach/avoidance tendencies. These signals may be interpreted as both a visualization of the liminal status of genetic technology and the unconscious sharing of psychic processes involved in sickness and healing adaptations.