Changing Attitudes To Complementary And Allternative Medicine by Jane Thurnell-Read

If I went to a party 20 years ago and was asked what I did, people would listen to my answer and then discover that they needed to go to the toilet / talk to someone urgently / refill their glass of wine. They would depart hurriedly promising to return, and then spend the rest of the evening avoiding me.

However, in the last few years that has changed. Now if I tell people what I do, they lean forward eagerly and say, “That’s really interesting. I’ve got a rash on my back / a strange cough / intermittent diarrhoea …” If I’m not careful, I can spend the whole evening giving consultations to a series of excited people.

I have been a complementary therapist for over 20 years, and the attitude to that has changed dramatically in that time. In the early days I was clearly labelled as a weird woman (by the polite) and as a deranged nutter (by the less charitable).

These attitudes weren’t only confined to the public. Doctors also had a negative attitude to me. Several of my clients told their GPs they were seeing me and were told that if they continued in this folly the GPs would remove them from their lists. Some GPs told their patients that I was in it for the money. Others told them that it did not work and that I was dangerous (an interesting combination), even though they knew little about me. Some patients were treated with disbelief. One client, a retired army man, went to his GP for something unrelated to what he had been to see me about. His GP looked at his notes and said, “While you’re here I’ll give you a prescription for your pain killers as you haven’t had one for some time.” My client said, “That’s because I don’t need them anymore. I went to see this kinesiologist about my arthritis and now I have no pain. Would you like to know about it?” The GP looked at him, said, “no,” and changed the subject.

Here too attitudes have changed. A University of Exeter study of 12 surveys calculated that on average 46 per cent considered complementary therapies to be effective but it was noted that young doctors were significantly more favourable to complementary therapies than older doctors (Arch Intern Med. 155(22): 2405-8 Dec 11-25 1995). A study in 2000 found that 9 out of 10 of the specialist doctors and nurses working for Macmillan Cancer Relief who were surveyed said they volunteer information about complementary medicine to ease symptoms of the disease.

There are now more complementary health therapists than doctors in the UK. A survey in 2001 found that 75 % of the public want alternative therapies made available on the NHS. The medical profession has also changed. 45 cent of registered medical practitioners refer patients for complementary medical treatments. 85 % of medical students, 76 % of GPs and 69 % of hospital doctors now feel that complementary therapies should be made available on the NHS. 58 % of nurses incorporate or use alternative therapies in their work and 89 % recommend alternative therapies to patients.

Copyright Jane Thurnell-Read | Natural Health Online Store