Complementary or alternative medicine brings up a group of medical disciplines that exist mainly outside the institutions where Western medicine is instructed and offered. Complementary medicine is an a growing field of medical practice. However, considerable confusion remains about what exactly complimentary medicine is and what position the disciplines should hold in relation to conventional medicine.
In the 1970s and 1980s, these fields were primarily provided as an alternative to conventional care and therefore was known collectively as “alternative medicine.” The name “complementary medicine” developed as the two schemes started to be used to “complement” each other. Over time, “complementary” has changed from explaining the relation between unconventional healthcare disciplines and conventional care to categorizing the group of disciplines itself. Some agencies use the term “unconventional medicine” synonymously. This evolving and overlapping terminology may clarify some of the confusion with respect to the subject.
The list of complementary/alternative medicine is quite lengthy, including acupressure, applied kinesiology, anthroposophic medicine, hypnosis, reflexology, Yoga, just to name a few. New branches of established disciplines are constantly being developed. However, what is believed to be unconventional varies between countries and evolves over time. The boundary between alternative and conventional medicine is often blurred and constantly shifting. The wide range of fields classified as complementary medicine makes it difficult to find concrete criteria that are common to all parties. Many of the assumptions made about complementary medicine are over simplistic generalisations.
Complementary/alternative medicine is a broad domain of medical resources that encompasses all health systems, practices, and their accompanying theories, other than those intrinsic to the politically dominant health system of a particular society in a given historical period. Complimentary and alternative medicine involves all these practices and ideas selfdefined by their users as preventing illness or promoting health and wellbeing. Boundaries within complimentary and alternative medicine and between the domain of complimentary/ www.academyofenergyhealing.com and that of the dominant system are not always sharp or fixed.
In Western countries, although complementary practitioners, except osteopaths and chiropractors, are able to legally practise with limited or no further education at all, most have accomplished certain form of post-secondary education in their selected discipline. There is vast degree of variation in the a variety of training institutions. For the primary practices, such as, osteopathy, chiropractic, acupuncture, herbal medicine, and homoeopathy, the training courses tend to be highly developed, some with college affiliation, diploma level examinations, and external evaluation. Others, particularly those teaching less invasive therapies such as massage, reflexology, aromatherapy, Reiki, Yoga, Shiatsu and hypnosis usually determine their curricula internally, and have no formal evaluation procedures. In some training courses, direct clinical practice is limited. Some are not recognised by the main registering bodies in the related discipline. Most alternative therapists finance their training without state support, and many train part time over several years.