Traditional African Healing Ceremony in a U.S. Population

Status

Completed

Phases

Study type

Interventional

Source

ClinicalTrials.gov

Registry ID

NCT01873482

Enrollment

Registered

2013-06-10

Start date

2014-05-31

Completion date

Unknown

Last updated

2014-11-03

For informational purposes only — not medical advice. Sourced from public registries and may not reflect the latest updates. Terms

Conditions

Anxiety, Cancer, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Depression

Brief summary

Pre-agricultural societies almost universally used healing ceremonies that involved reverence, rhythm and dance in the presence of a healer. It is believed that we are wired for such experiences and they foster an integrative mode of consciousness similar to that of mindfulness based stress reduction, which has been shown to have therapeutic effects in a variety of conditions. Collaborator Ava Lavonne Vinesett of the Duke Dance Program has developed a healing ceremony based in sub-Saharan African traditions. The investigators plan is to have 25 subjects with a variety of clinical conditions participate in this ceremony. Subjects will then be asked to write a commentary about their experience and to participate in a focus group discussion. It is anticipated that the study will give us some idea of how promising this approach would be and what kinds of patients might benefit. Safety issues are minimal and include the possibility of injury (though the dancing is not strenuous) and psychological distress.

Interventions

BEHAVIORALMovement to rhythm

Movement to rhythm

Study design

Allocation

Intervention model

SINGLE_GROUP

Primary purpose

SUPPORTIVE_CARE

Masking

NONE

Eligibility

Sex/Gender

ALL

Age

25 Years to 65 Years

Healthy volunteers

Inclusion criteria

* Age 25 to 65 with one of the diagnoses listed above or with 8 visits to their provider in the last year and with no diagnosis of chronic illness.

Exclusion criteria

* physical disability making participation difficult and previous experience with a similar ceremony, for instance while growing up in Africa.

Design outcomes

Primary

Measure	Time frame
Report from each participant as to whether they found the experience positive, neutral or negative.	During the first hour after the intervention

Secondary

Measure	Time frame
written narrative of experience	During the first hour after the intervention

Other

Measure	Time frame
Encounter group discussion	During the first hour after the intervention

Countries

United States

Outcome results

None listed

Source: ClinicalTrials.gov · Data processed: Feb 4, 2026