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There's a lot of what I feel is misplaced vitriol and hostility in this thread, especially towards the patients who believe in this sort of stuff. What a lot of people seem to be missing is that these are usually people who have had some very unfortunate experiences with mainstream medicine, and will go through a lot of mental gymnastics to let themselves believe that the "alternative" treatments are ultimately the right path. Combine this with the human tendency to group themselves and others into movement and countermovement, and suddenly you have people singing the praises of Bleeblop Root Extract and harboring belief in a global conspiracy of doctors to keep 'em coming back by loving their poo poo up. Picture someone who has been through pain and malpractice in sickly lit clinics that smell of peroxide and death, who goes in to the doctor telling them their prescription isn't helping, only to have them rubberstamp a script for double the dosage and send them out the door, who feels scared and alone, uncertain of what is going on with their body because the best a doctor can give them is a "well your results look fine" and a smirk that oozes feigned pity. So this person decides they're fed up, and as a last-ditch attempt to be healthy they decide to visit the Alternative Medicine Yuppie Witch Doctor that Sheila from Work was telling them about. The practice is lovely, with lots of plants, mellow lighting, with a faint hint of lavender and cardamom in the air, and maybe even some soothing music in the waiting room. Having waited just five minutes with their rear end resting on the generously stuffed cushion of a hand-carved wooden chair, they are called in to the Healing Room, where the Healer Person asks detailed questions about them, their condition, eating habits, pets, love life, all that stuff. Then they are asked to strip down to their undergarments (the room is well above stiff-nipple temperature) and lay on the Healing Table. The Healing Session probably then consists of some firm but overall pleasant touching, some "do you feel like that when i go like this?" questioning (the answer is always "uh-huh"), maybe some light small talk in between, undoubtedly touching on the horror stories of medicine past. The patient leaves the practice 65 bucks lighter and having had an almost entirely positive experience. Stories similar to this are commonplace across the globe, and usually lead to some degree of belief in the core methods being applied. I really find it hard to fault people for rejecting rigorously proven medicine in favor of excellent bedside manner. The unfortunate reality is that lots of people are put off by the cold clinical vibes and lovely attitudes they experience any time they have to visit the doctor, leaving with a bad taste in their mouth, and doubting that what they received was adequate care. A lot of people forget that the care experience is about more than just the direct treatment of an illness; bedside manner, a welcoming atmosphere, transparency, and adequate face time with doctors and nurses are all factors affecting not only the mental wellbeing of a patient, but also the outcome of their treatment. These are things that "alternative" medicine often does better than the mainstream, and that's something that needs to be acknowledged. XMNN posted:Something like that is the only thing that makes sense because chi and chakras and crystals and water memory are all extremely obviously bullshit and can't possibly be an explanation for any positive effects of these methods, if there are any. Water memory is pretty much certainly bullshit, but stuff like chi, chakras, "energy", whatever are IMO only partially so. As far as I can tell, they are for the most part words used to describe concepts built around highly subjective perceptions of one's own body that have otherwise not effectively been put into words. That highly subjective nature, combined with the immense potential for miscommunication and misunderstanding is the reason these things are such hairy topics to discuss. Some people would like to believe that the "energy" they perceive exists very directly in the physical realm and can be influenced by magnets or crystals or needles or whatever, and from what I have seen, this is where much of the superstition and bullshit arises from (looking at you, Reiki). From what I have experienced though, I think most of the stuff described can be thought of as neurological abstractions of complex interactions between various parts of the nervous system, and to some extent things like yoga and meditation can have a pronounced effect on these phenomena. Given that, I think it is absolutely worth taking a good scientific look into the nature of these perceptions. Bits and pieces of some of these so-called alternative medicine concepts do occasionally manage to creep into mainstream treatment (meditation, fecal transplants, some herbal medicines), so while it's very important to view these things critically, it's also a lovely idea to write it all off wholesale without at least being inquisitive and picking the ideas apart looking for the core of their benefits. snorch fucked around with this message at 22:02 on Oct 27, 2014 |
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Oct 27, 2014 21:51
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CommieGIR posted:You are trying too hard to equate the overall nice experience of visiting an alternative medicine practitioner to a successful treament. That is a very bad fallacy. That's not the message I'm trying to convey, but rather that patients often come to value the experience more than the treatment, and in turn attempt to justify the "alternative" as the best decision in their minds, because the way it's portrayed on both sides is that you can choose either one or the other, but not both; doctors are can't stand the mention of the hocum quackery, and the quacks can't stand those uppity doctors.
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Oct 27, 2014 22:21
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