Contents -- Foreword -- Acknowledgments -- General introduction -- Introduction -- PART ONE -- 1. Non-Medical Healing Systems. An Attempt to Identify and Interpret the Social Phenomenon -- 1. 1. The Sociology of Non-Medical Healing Systems - Taxonomy -- 1.1.1. Evidence-Based Medicine (EBM) -- 1.1.2. Non-Medical Healing Systems -- 2. Methods of Treatment Not Accepted by Medicine. The State of Research -- 2.1 Non-Medical Healing Systems in Light of Polish Studies on the Sociology of Health and Illness -- 2.2. Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) as Interpreted by American and European Sociology of Health and Illness -- 2.3. Other Research Perspectives (Medical Anthropology, History of Medicine, Clinical Medicine) -- 2.3.1. Medical Anthropology -- 2.3.2. History of Medicine -- 2.3.3. Clinical Medicine -- PART TWO -- 1. Sociomedical Studies on Folk Medical Systemsand Village Self-Treatment. Problems and Controversies -- 1.1. Difficulties in Defining Concepts and Terms -- 1.2. Degree of Source Credibility -- 1.3. "Irrationality" of Folk Medical Systems -- 1.4. The Role of Historical Themes in Sociological Studies on the Folk Medical System -- 2. Health and Illness in Peasant Families. The Social Framework of Self-Treatment and Folk Medical Systems in the Twentieth Century -- 2.1. State of Health of the Polish Rural Population -- 2.2. Characteristics of Illness Behavior in Peasant Families -- 2.3. Woman as A Home Therapist -- 2.3.1. Self-Treatment - the Role of Women -- 2.3.2. Woman in the Social Role of Folk Practitioner (Folk medical system) -- 2.4. Determinants of Illness Behaviors -- 2.4.1. Macrosocial Determinants -- 2.4.1.1. Social Policy and Ideology -- 2.4.1.2. Economic Conditions -- 2.4.1.3. Culture -- 2.4.1.4. Folk medical systems - the Perspective of Seeing the World -- 2.4.1.5. Religious Elements in the Polish Folk medical system.

2.4.2. Mesosocial Determinants -- 2.4.2.1 Attitudes to Medical Institutions and Professions -- 2.4.3. Microsocial Determinants -- 2.4.3.1. Nutritional Patterns -- 2.4.3.2. Housing Conditions -- 2.4.3.3. Hygienic Habits -- 2.4.3.4. Psychosocial Factors -- PART THREE -- 1. Sociological Description of Non-Professional Ways of Meeting Health Needs in a Pluralistic Society -- 1.1. On Methodological Disputes Once Again -- 1.2. Social Causes of the Phenomenon -- 1.3. The Extent of Use of Non-Conventional Therapies -- 1.4. Healing - Methods of Treatment, Culture, and Ideology -- 2. Lay Healing Practices - A Theoretical Approach. Symbolic Interactionism, Phenomenology and Ethnomethodology as the Sources of Research Conceptions Used in the Sociology of Non-Medical Healing Systems -- 2.1. The Analysis of Everyday Knowledge about Health and Illness - Eliot Freidson's Approach -- 2.1.1. Characteristics of the Lay Referral System -- 2.2 Everyday Knowledge about Health and Illness in Light of Results of Own Research -- 2.3. Attempts to Create 'Theories of Treatment' by Non-Conventional Therapists -- 3. The Kashpirovsky Phenomenon in the Context of the Changing Society -- 3.1. The Range of Public Interest -- 3.2. The Kashpirovsky Method: Psychotherapy or Teletherapy? -- 3.3. Letters to Kashpirovsky. A Methodological Challenge -- Conclusions -- Bibliography -- Index.