ABSTRACT
From an author’s viewpoint, this chapter is appropriately entitled as being concerned with challenge and change since very little has been written by social scientists specifically on the relationship between medicine and complementary medicine in the context of debates about postmodernity, on which this chapter focuses. Having said that, as will be seen as the discussion unfolds, the interface between orthodox medicine and the popularly labelled ‘complementary’ therapies that have increasingly emerged in Britain and other Western societies since the 1960s has also been an arena of challenge and change. This applies not just to the health domain itself, but also to the realm of social theory as contributors to this area have striven to interpret its meaning and significance. As this chapter indicates, the concept of postmodernism potentially has much to offer in understanding the shifting relationship between orthodox and complementary medicine, even if it is not without its limitations. Some basic mapping of the terrain, however, is initially required to set the scene for the discussion.
