ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at what people had to say about individual groups of complementary therapies, and draws on the common themes emerging across all of the therapies. Some approaches are not always thought of as therapies, but as they were used therapeutically by some people, classifying them as complementary therapies is a useful collective shorthand. Complementary therapies have become increasingly popular, and studies have shown that they are beginning to become more easily available on the National Health Service – predominantly in the treatments of drug and alcohol abuse, HIV and Aids, and some other physical conditions. People’s comments suggest that they saw complementary therapies as distinctly complementary to conventional approaches rather than as a substitute. In this sense they were truly complementary rather than alternative therapies. People were more likely to use complementary therapies because they wanted to, rather than because they had been prescribed to them; in other words, there was a more active choice involved.
