Razão e Fé: estudo do grupo de oração como prática complementar na promoção à saúde

The World Health Organization (WHO) has given special attention to therapeutic procedures other than those practiced in conventional therapy, including homeopathy, phytotherapy, spiritual therapies and prayers, making possible the transition from a mere medicalizating model to a holistic view of the human being. This trend, earmarked in 1978 at the Alma-Ata Conference, questions the ability of technological and specialized medicine to solve the health problems of humankind. In Brazil, the onset of the Brazilian unified health system in 1988, introduced changes in the population s health care model where, within the scope of basic care, emphasis has been given to the Family Health Program since 1994. In this scenery, there is a broad area of complementary practices used in promoting health and preventing and treating diseases to support an understanding of the habits and beliefs underpinning popular practices. The purpose of this study was to analyze the perception users participating in the Peace and Balance group of the Family Health Unit of Nova Cidade, in Natal, Rio Grande do Norte, started in 1999, have of the relationship between the experience of prayer and the changes that may have taken place in their lives after joining the group. It is a case study of descriptive nature and qualitative approach. The data were collected during focus group interviews between January and February 2007, using as tools a questionnaire to describe the research participants and a discussion outline. The theoretical support approached the following: religion and the evolution of thought; complementary health practices; and religion as a complementary health practice. Those interviewed reported, as results of such experience, a reduction in stress and depression, an increase in socialization and self-esteem, improved family interaction, comfort, safety, assurance, improved blood pressure levels and a decrease in the use of antihypertension medication and psychopharmacs. Although most professionals do not consider attention to the religious and spiritual aspects an effective therapeutical complement in health care, its understanding and practice may democratize knowledge and relationships, out of which they can learn how to make health production more effective, strengthening assurance and confidence, and developing and expanding soft technologies aimed at health care promotion and wholeness

A apreciação musical infantil: aspectos da constituição da infância contemporânea no discurso de crianças do Ensino Fundamental

Music can be found in peculiar historical and social context with distinct functions, such as religious rituals, ethic-esthetic education of subjects, therapeutic elements, critic and maintenance of established patterns, among others. Considered as language, music acts on dialogue dimensions of the body, the senses, the affectionate-cognitive and of social interactions. Their uses reveal the social forces that cross the culture and constitution of subjectivities. The attribution of senses by the subjects to musical production reveals the cultural voices in dialogue, that circumscribe determined social places to them. Our aim in this work is to investigate the child musical appreciation, with children about 7 to 9 years old, and, by attributing uses and senses to music, unveil the voices that settle the places intended and assumed by infancy in contemporaneity The child constructs its musical appreciation through cultural access and mediation, possible by circulation in several socializing groups like family, school, church, infant groups, community groups and, more recently, publicity and media These last two spheres, enabled by the development of the technological means of communication, contributed to the dissemination of the set of consume ideas and for the emergence of the cultural industry, characteristic of the capitalistic production way in its present configuration. They develop new possibilities of perception of the world, in which the limits between childhood and adulthood are not anymore the same that have been established in previous centuries. So, the child musical appreciation is constituted by homogeneity regarding the senses built and disseminated by cultural industry and by the logical merchandizing, and singularities, associated to the construction of senses in interaction with global, local, and multiple contexts, through which the subject circulates and constitutes himself polyphonically