The Response of Health Professions to Complementary and Alternative Medicine

Health professions have often adopted an intolerant, authoritarian and adversarial response to complementary and alternative medicine (CAM), particularly when its exponents are not part of orthodox professional bodies. They have, for instance, intentionally behaved in discriminatory ways, been unintentionally discriminatory and/or invalidated and undermined the experiences of marginalized CAM groups. This regular oral paper session considers how far and in what ways such an authoritarian posture has been adopted by different kinds of health professions in relation to varying types of CAM therapies – from acupuncture and aromatherapy to herbalism and homeopathy. In addition, in terms of the Congress theme, it analyses whether such an approach is resurgent or whether rapprochement between orthodoxy and unorthodoxy is more apparent in the contemporary era. The session also examines the effects of a negative, authoritarian approach by orthodox health professions on the position of CAM – as well as how an intolerant, adversarial stance centred on power and dominance can be explained. Is it, for instance, simply related to cultural factors or deeper seated self-interests? Papers on one or more of these questions are invited based on single societies or comparative international contexts.