This article focuses an experience of illness and cure witnessed by the first author in a rural community of Nova Friburgo, Rio de Janeiro. The reported experience allows a view of its existential, social, cultural, psychological, biological and symbolic meanings both for the patient, her community and their relationship. The initial presumption of a strictly biological diagnosis and intervention was modified by a sole medical consultation, which acquired a therapeutical function through broadening the interpretation of the experience beyond the limits of a "scientific objectivity". The disease process had its turning point towards resolution at the juridical level. The fact that the recognition of other levels for the disease determination took place at the powerful space of medical consultation may have contributed to the patient's change of attitude towards herself and the community, leading to cure once she started to play a new social role legally legitimated. The reported experience is discussed in terms of the reducing approaches of health/ illness.
Complexity; Health and illness determinants; Social and cultural factors