ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses the question of whether the healer-patient relationship in complementary therapy is radically different from that which obtains in orthodox medical practice. One very widespread opinion is that not only is this difference great, but it may be the very source of complementary medicine’s current popularity. For example, Rosemary Taylor (1984) has argued that it is the deterioration in the quality of the ‘medical encounter’ consequent upon the overly technological approach to healing and (in Britain) upon overstretched resources which has caused many to turn to the more personal approach offered by most forms of complementary therapy.
