The growing interest in alternative therapies is not difficult to understand. People sometimes turn to alternative therapies after a negative or unsatisfying experience with the way modern health care system provides “care”. Medical practitioners often have a little time to spend with their patients, many of whom they barely know. Patients feel shuffled in and out of offices, hooked up to one instrument after another, and finally handed a huge bill. They often come away from an impersonal medical business feeling confused, not really heard, and even scared.
Into this environment comes and “alternative” – or way to approach health and healing that is personal and caring. Practitioners of alternative therapies spend lots of time going over every aspect of a patients life. They don’t rush from one appointment to the next and seem genuinely interested in each patient. Insurance might not cover the costs, but the charges seem reasonable and all that endless paperwork is eliminated. Unlike many of conventional medicine, alternative therapists don’t compare their practices to a war against a disease. Rather, they focus on building up each person in order to ward off diseases. In so doing, they focus on the person rather than the disease. Therefore, the turn to alternative therapies is partly a reaction against a system perceived as impersonal, financially driven, and lacking in humility. Certainly many within the conventional medicine are caring professionals focused on doing their best for their patients. But confidence in the system as a whole is decreasing, and people are becoming more open to considering alternatives.
People should indeed pursue the therapies that are the most effective and affordable. They need not assume that conventional medicine is always the safest and most effective answer to curing human ills. But they must also be discerning.
Physical therapy, counseling, nutrition and massage are listed as alternative therapies used mostly by people with multiple body pains. Also most common are chiropractic, weight loss programs, acupuncture, relaxation therapy, mental imagery, hypnosis. Some of the therapies have much to offer patients and should be encouraged, some should be rejected completely and others fall somewhere in between.
- Complimentary therapies - such as diet, exercise, stress reduction that address broader lifestyle issues.
- Scientifically unproven therapies – such as many herbal remedies, with a foundation in established medical and scientific principles but for which very little scientific evidence exists.
- Scientifically questionable therapies – such as homeopathy, based on principles that contradict well-established scientific principles or that cannot be easily verified.
- Life energy therapies – such as therapeutic touch or “Reiki”, that assume the existence of “life energy” that can be manipulated by a variety of techniques.
- Quackery and Fraud – that have been shown to have no reasonable benefit but that are still promoted by committed adherents. Fraud can occur with any therapy but especially will alternative therapies because the usually lack adequate research and rely on patient testimonials and validation.
We need not accept or reject alternative therapies as a whole, but we can evaluate when therapy based on the category/categories to which it belongs. Complimentary therapies generally seem to play an important role in promoting health where as quackery should always be exposed and rejected. Decisions about scientifically unproven theories, therapists based on life and energy and scientifically questionable therapies will have to be made case by case with reliance on the best scientific evidence available.
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