The use of traditional medicine, or a combination of biomedical treatment and traditional medicine, is a common phenomenon all over Indonesia. Drawing on the transdiciplinary field of health psychology and medical anthropology, this study discusses concepts and approaches that explain the use of traditional and complementary medicine in urban Yogyakarta (Indonesia). Besides this substantive focus on healthcare in urban Yogyakarta, this study also finds a textual form to trace the journey of a ‚Western‘ researcher, who tries to understand the meaning of healthcare in urban Yogyakarta. Thus, this study also traces the formative influence of the author along different steps of meaning making.

This study highlights different voices of health seekers who emphasize that the current healthcare system in Indonesia does not meet their needs: neither the needs of the female Javanese health seekers, nor those of the medical experts and practitioners of both sectors, traditional as well as biomedical. Consequently, considerations of healthcare need to recognize and accomodate the plurality and complexity of medical approaches present in a given society, in order to bridge the rhetoric of healthcare systems and the experienced reality of health seekers as well as the formal and the informal healthcare system.