ABSTRACT
Practitioners and proponents of complementary and alternative healing practices view their work in a completely different way. Many have argued that their goal is the same as that of conventional medicine—to offer effective healing therapies. Their belief is that orthodox medicine has helped some people but has failed to help many others, and in fact often harms them. While alternatives to medical doctors—everything from home remedies to prayer to chiropractors—were frequently used, they were considered to be unorthodox or unconventional medicine. Scientific medicine has been taught almost exclusively in health courses in schools, has been the subject of public health campaigns, and has been the dominant perspective in the medical school curriculum. While some people have become disillusioned with conventional care and have made a cognitive commitment to complementary and alternative practices, the more common pattern is that individuals use different healers for different problems.
