Take a load off Fanny or Takeshi, Childhood & Thanatoid Society

[Terrance]

It seems that Fanny has a certain inventory of sins (comparable to the
"typical events" of our psychotherapeutic schools), which she attaches,
under ritualistic circumstances, to a certain disturbance. She thus
makes people confess as facts tendencies which, in view of the structure
of the culture, can be predicted, and the confession of which is
profitable for anybody's inner peace. Having an exalted position in a
primitive community, Fanny is, of course, in possession of enough gossip
to know her patients' weaknesses even before she sees them and is
experienced enough to read her patients' faces while she goes about her
magic business.  If she, then, connects a feeling of guilt derived from
secret aggression or perversion with the child's symptoms, she is on
good psychological ground, and we are not surprised to hear that
neurotic symptoms usually disappear after Fanny has put her finger on
the main source of ambivalence in the family and provoked a confession
in public. 

Childhood & Society 
> 
> >
> > Fanny, one of Alfred Kroeber's oldest informants, called herself, and
> > was called by others, a "doctor." So far as she treated somatic
> > disorders or used the Yurok brand of physiological treatment, I could
> > not claim to be her professional equal. However, she also did
> > psychotherapy with children, and in this field it was possible to
> > exchange notes.