Does it work? Why? Is it God, "science," or psychology?
In the documentary, healers and commentators offer various explanations for why traditional healing "works." These can be separated roughly into two categories: the emic and the etic. The emic views deal with internal explanations of traiteur's efficacy; whereas, etic explanations are those framed in terms of ideas from outside the system. These two fields of thought often overlap in the documentary as practitioners and patients voice their views on how this kind of healing works. For most, it's a belief in the power of prayer and God's intercession through a traiteur. Shannon affirms "...There's nothing voodoo about it, or crazy, or magical even. Some people may think it's magic, but...it's just a prayer to God in their behalf." In a more ecclesiastic pronouncement of the same idea, a local hospital chaplain Fr. Keith LaBove states, "The role of traiteur is to be the embodied, the en-fleshed, the incarnate presence of god. They are instrument. They are a tool, if you will."

Other explanations emphasize scientific and empirical aspects. While making mamou cough syrup in the film, Edna R., a Cajun traiteuse, explains, "...Some mamou root — it loosens up the cold so you can spit it." A local pharmacist Sid Dupois presents a more pharmacological explanation: "[Mamou] does contain active ingredients which are steroid-like — saponins which reduce the surface tension of thick mucus allowing it to be an expectorant." Helen Regis points out that the plants are not chosen or used randomly: "Most traditional healing systems are empirical. They're based on trial and error...Does it make you feel better?...People do reject things that don't work. It's a kind of science, really." Furthering the comparison with "science," Barry Ancelet, a prominent Louisiana folklorist, asserts, "A lot of this is not magic, it's just natural observation. It's the same sound, natural observation that led to the development of what we call medicine today."

For the more faith or ritually based treatments, many outsiders (and a few insiders) state it may have more to do with the power of the mind than the soul or the scientific. The human body is equipped to heal itself from most disorders, and often illness is brought on or exacerbated through the harmful effects of an individual's despondent attitude. This connection of the human's physiological and mental components creates conditions labeled psycho-somatic. Pharmacist Sid Dupois explains, "Psycho-somatic comes from the word psycho, which is mind, and soma, which is body, so it's mind/body...Psycho-somatic doesn't mean it's all in your head. It means your head is making your body ill."

Treating within a common cultural and religious system in which both the healer and the patient believe greatly enhances the efficacy of treatments. Claude Lévi-Strauss first pointed out the importance of symbolic healing in the Cuna childbirth ritual. In this ceremony the healer chants a long, narrative song to his patient thereby creating a symbolic language in which to frame the chaos of her illness, give meaning to her pain and re-structure the experience with a sense of hope and empowerment.

James Dow takes this idea a step further to demonstrate the significance of ritual performance in dramatizing the healing myth. He proposes "...that symbolic healing has a universal structure in which the healer helps the patient particularize a general cultural mythic world and manipulate healing symbols in it" (Dow, 1986). Although he does concede that physical and pharmacologic therapies may also be present in cross-cultural healing systems, symbolic elements are always a vital part of the healing process. When the traiteur and patient believe an omnipotent God is intervening through the intercession of a powerful ritual or prayer specialist, the patient feels more confident of getting well. For example, Miss Ella treats with culturally recognized symbols of religious power when giving a crucifix to her patients to hold as she prays over them, and making the sign of the cross to begin each prayer although, as seen in the film, she often executes it incorrectly. Considering that Miss Ella is Baptist, these two Catholic symbols may seem inconsistent with her faith. However, in a predominantly Catholic area like Southern Louisiana, these ritual elements are part of a collective understanding about how to perform ritual effectively.

What is the placebo effect?
When a treatment brings about healing, yet a scientific reason for the healing cannot be discerned, biomedicine calls this the placebo effect. Regis states:

...In most scientific studies of pharmaceuticals, [the placebo effect] is considered a negative thing — where you don't really want the placebo effect because you want to know whether the drug is biochemically effective. But what a number of medical anthropologists have pointed out is that we really need to focus on why the placebo is working. That is a kind of effectiveness, and it's a kind of effectiveness found in traditional healing.

Regis further demonstrates that similar logic can explain the efficacy of spells and witchcraft. This "nocebo" effect contends that, "...if you believe that something can hurt you it really can."

How does the placebo work in other health systems?
The placebo effect does not apply only to traditional healing. Faith in any healing system, including biomedicine, has enormous effects on its ability to improve well being. This applies not only to the proverbial "sugar pills," but to the power of rituals in medical settings. Folklorist Barry Ancelet contends the following:

If you go into a doctor's office for a check-up, and he looks at you and talks to you for a little while and tells you, 'Well I know what's wrong and here's what it is.' You say, 'Well, wait a minute. You're not gonna look at my throat; and you're not gonna listen to my heart; and you're not gonna hit my knees! Wait a minute! I'm not getting my money's worth. You have to go through all this because this is what makes me feel like you're examining me.' What is all that? That's all ritual. We are terribly uncomfortable when you eliminate ritual.

How does a believer explain the failure of treatments?
Shannon offers two explanations for why a treatment may not work. The first has to do with the way she (and many adherents to this system) view the will of God. She suggests, "...God chooses to let you help that person, and, sometimes, He chooses for that person not to be helped. No matter who's asking, no matter who's the traiteur, no matter what the sickness is. It's all up to Him..." However, when discussing the "rules" of treating (which vary according to the treater with which one talks), Shannon offers the following rationale:

When a treatment doesn't work, people'll sit there and say, 'Well, it didn't work because of this or it didn't work because of — maybe that's where they got the things like there's too much water between you...things like wait five minutes in between treatments; do it three times if possible; always say the prayer nine times; it's better to do it face-face; if there's too much water between you it won't work; you have to face their direction... You know, to me, they'll always question those things.

To Shannon, the rules themselves offer the leeway needed to explain failure by questioning the traiteur's methods. However, that questioning never challenges the basic assumption behind the system: that God does heal through traiteurs.