The conventional framework that guides the
practice of medicine in the United States is physi-
cian centered and based in measurable evidence
and reliably repeatable results through controlled
clinical studies. Though the true measure of a
treatment’s success is whether people improve or
worsen with its use, evidence-based standards give
conventional physicians a sense of reasonable
expectation when making treatment decisions and
recommendations. Many conventional doctors are
increasingly interested and willing to add respon-
sible alternative and complementary therapies to
integrative treatment plans when they have rea-
sonable expectations for how such therapies
may benefit the patient’s condition or QUALITY OF
LIFE.
When looking at the broad range of alternative
and complementary approaches from acupuncture
to PRAYER AND SPIRITUALITYto VISUALIZATIONit is also
important to understand how patients look to
these methods in preventive and lifestyle contexts.
MEDITATIONand YOGA, for example, have become
fairly mainstream as practices to reduce stress and
are gaining acceptance for their abilities to influ-
ence health conditions such as HYPERTENSION(high
BLOOD PRESSURE). As researchers and doctors learn
more about the pathways and mechanisms of
MIND–BODY INTERACTIONS, they understand more
fully how lifestyle and preventive health meas-
ures, with a holistic view of the individual, are
important. Within such a context, yoga and exer-
cise become comparable complements to good
health. Whether one or the other is “alternative”
or “conventional” has little relevance; each bene-
fits health in similar ways.
COMMON ALTERNATIVE AND
COMPLEMENTARY THERAPIESACUPUNCTURE AROMATHERAPY
ART THERAPY BIOFEEDBACK
Chinese herbal remedies CRANIOSACRAL MASSAGE
FLOWER ESSENCES HYPNOSIS
MAGNET THERAPY MASSAGE THERAPY
MEDICINAL HERBS AND BOTANICALS NUTRITIONAL THERAPY
OSTEOPATHIC MANIPULATIVE PRAYER AND SPIRITUALITY
TREATMENT(OMT) TAI CHI
VISUALIZATION VITAMIN AND MINERAL
YOGA THERAPY
Historical Traditions in
Alternative Healing Systems
The oldest known healing systems still in practice
today, traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) and
Ayurveda, date to perhaps 3000 B.C.E., well before
the advent of written language. NATIVEAMERICAN
HEALINGoriginating among the indigenous cultures
of the North American continent melds spirituality
and health in much the same fashion as does
India’s Ayurveda and, archaeological evidence
suggests, could have origins that are nearly as
ancient. In these systems, healers passed their
knowledge from one to another, generation to
generation, through tradition and experience. In
some cultures each successive generation devel-
oped improvements on the methods of healing
their ancestors used, and in other cultures each
generation of healers practiced in precise compli-
ance with the traditions they learned from the
generations before them.
Some alternative healing systems are relatively
modern, emerging within the past 100 or 200
years as outgrowths of what were the medical
practices of their times. Though common percep-
tion views alternative and complementary thera-
pies as Eastern in their philosophies and practices,
these newer systems—notably HOMEOPATHY, NATUR-
OPATHY, and OSTEOPATHY—are Western in origin and
orientation. One alternative healing method, CHI-
ROPRACTIC, is uniquely American.ALTERNATIVE HEALING SYSTEMS
AYURVEDA HOMEOPATHY
NATIVEAMERICAN HEALING NATUROPATHY
OSTEOPATHY TRADITIONALCHINESE MEDICINE(TCM)Interest in, and use of, alternative therapies is a
growing phenomenon in the United States.
According to a 2002 survey by the US National
Center for Complementary and Alternative Medi-
cine (NCCAM) and the US Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention (CDC) National Center for
Health Statistics (NCHS), nearly two thirds of
Americans use some form of alternative health
practice, most of them to complement their con-
ventional medical care.
Surveys show that half choose alternative thera-
pies on their own to complement conventional
therapies, a quarter use alternative therapies their52 Alternative and Complementary Approaches