6 ABSOLUTE BEGINNER’S GUIDE TOALTERNATIVE MEDICINE
■ They believe conventional medicine treats symptoms, not underlying cause.
■ They find conventional medical treatments to be lacking or ineffective.
■ To avoid toxicities and/or invasiveness of conventional interventions.
■ To decrease use of prescribed or over-the-counter (OTC) medications.
■ To identify with a particular healing system as a part of cultural
background.What We Talk About When We Talk About Health
One of the first problems a healthcare consumer encounters when considering some type
of non-traditional medical treatment is that of language. Many people regard the term
“alternative medicine” as too narrow or misleading and are concerned that the term
does not encompass a full understanding of traditional healing practices. It would be
more helpful for a common language to be developed without people being captive to it.
For consistency’s sake, this guide will use the terms conventional medicineor biomedicineto
describe standard Western medical practices and the terms alternative medicineor comple-
mentary medicineto describe the other healing practices that are this guide’s focus.
However, there are no universally accepted terms. For example, the term alternative
medicine is used more in the United States while complementary medicine is used in
Europe, but do they really mean the same thing? And, should Western medicine be
called Western medicine when it’s practiced in the modern hospitals of India and
Singapore? Confusion over the very terms used lies at the heart of much of the con-
fusion about alternative medicine as a whole, especially as more and more informa-
tion, often contradictory, becomes available to the consumer (see Table 1.2).
Hopefully, this guide will help you organize and evaluate the information you have
and discover, and allow you to make informed and considered decisions about your
approach to maintaining and enhancing your health.Table 1.2 Terms Used to Compare the Two Types of Medicine
Mainstream Medicine Complementary/Alternative
Modern Ancient
Western Eastern
Allopathic Homeopathic
Conventional Unconventional
Orthodox Traditional
Biomedicine Natural medicine
Scientific Indigenous healing methods