The resources listed here are comprised of health systems, practices or products that are either:
- alternative to the techniques of conventional medicine. e.g. an herbal remedy for headaches that is used instead of an over-the-counter headache pill, or
- complementary to conventional medical practice. e.g acupuncture is used in conjunction with a medical procedure to reduce pain.
Many of these resources are undergoing research by the
National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine ("NCCAM"). However, due to the intricacies of modern research requirements, it may be some time before the effectiveness of these methods is proved statistically.
Note:
Although millions of people across the planet have benefited - and often down through the centuries - Western medicine has historically looked unfavourably upon holistic methods.
Why the unfavourable viewpoint?
You will often hear statements from Western-trained health practitioners such as: "There is no research to substantiate this method's effectiveness" in reference to a specific holistic approach. It's important to understand that what this statement means is that there hasn't been any research to say
either way.
The statement
doesn't mean that research evidence exists and that the conclusion was that there was no effect. In other words, lack of evidence does
not equal lack of effectiveness.
Research methodology problems
Sometimes research does exist for a specific technique and there is good evidence for its effectiveness (e.g. acupuncture for osteoarthritic knee pain). We can't say however that research shows acupuncture is good for allergies. So, you might hear "acupuncture hasn't been shown to help allergies". It's not to say that acupuncture
might help allergies but unless the research has been done for that specific problem we can't specifically refer to the research.
Sometimes however the findings are inconclusive. They're inconclusive because it's too difficult to come to any firm conclusions when there are too many problems in measurement. This is the difficulty with research on the light-touch therapies. How do you measure and control for the amount of pressure that a therapist uses in craniosacral therapy for instance?
Why is there so little research?
It costs enormous sums of money to fund research; unfortunately much of it comes from the pharmaceutical industry. Because holistic approaches are non-patented and/or done by an individual practitioner, there is little potential profit in researching and promoting these approaches.
Researching the CAM is similar to the problem of determiming the effectiveness of psychotherapy.
For example, a lot of the research done on psychotherapy is for those therapies that are easily manualized. In these cases, it's easy to establish controls for measuring the impact of important variables. However, results of such approaches often have little relevance for "real therapists helping real clients in the real world". Similarly, research on CAM methods is often limited to those that promise specific symptom relief; the wider effectiveness of holistic interventions cannot (yet) be captured by conventional statistical approaches.
To find out what kind of research
could be done if there were funding, you'll enjoy reading Dr. Seligman's comments on one of the
largest studies of the effectiveness of psychotherapy.
My Personal Musings
Throughout the centuries there have been ample examples of people being resistant to change especially social changes. And it isn't just about negative things. People are often so incredulous about good things, they end up completely discounting a recent discovery believing "it's too good to be true".
If you talk with naturopathic physicians, you'll learn that there are literally hundreds of excellent studies in many frontiers of health care that never reach mainstream medicine...information that could alleviate the suffering of thousands of people dealing with chronic illnesses not to mention some obvious health care practices that could prevent serious health care problems.
So why do some health care professionals (i.e. medical doctors, psychologists) resist so strongly against change and in particular, holistic health care?
I now suspect that it isn't just a matter of the lack of good research to support an intervention. There is a substantial amount of research if you have a mind to look for it. Neuroscience has been providing good evidence for years that left brain approaches are limited in their impact. Yet most therapists persist in using talk therapy exclusively. Similary, clinical studies confirm that the therapeutic relationship is important to outcome yet too many therapists abandon their clients when transference issues surface.
It's my view that the more you are emotionally invested in the way you are now, the more you will stick to your current way of doing things and the more you will resist what's new. And while it's not always the case, I now tend to think that a health practitioner's viewpoint on holistic health care is actually more a matter whether he or she has a
readiness for change than it is about a "healthy" dose of skeptism.
Dr. Suzanne LaCombe, April 19, 2009.
