Alternative Healing Systems

Alternative Healing Systems Essay Sample

Wide range of factors having influenced the development of the medical field in the West and in the East must be considered before an attempt to assess and differentiate between the traditional Chinese and modern American medical approaches could be made. The complex interplay of religion, philosophy, economical and political factors has shaped the Chinese medicine over the past two thousand years, while American medicine mainly consists of the relatively recent technological and intellectual achievements of the West. The fundamental difference between the two lies in the different logical structures, which are reflected even in the way medical practitioners define basic concepts of symptom, disease, or health. While American medicine attempts to trace every symptom back to its cause, thus, isolating the disease, its agent, or a part of the body affected by it from the rest of the organism, Chinese medicine views a symptom as an inseparable part of the overall bodily pattern:

The Chinese method is thus holistic, based on the idea that no single part can be understood except in its elation to the whole… A person who is well, or “in harmony”, has no distressing symptoms and expresses mental, physical, and spiritual balance. When a person is ill, the symptom is only one part of the complete bodily imbalance that can be seen in other aspects of his or her life and behavior (Kaptchuk 7).

Thus, Chinese thought attempts to learn the patterns of the universe and recognize them in its smaller aspects, such as human beings; therefore, their medicine views its patient as a mere reflection of the overall harmony of the world, with disharmony being the sign of the disease.

Naturally, the medicine based on such type of thinking has not passed unnoticed by the Western medical world and the United States in particular. And while some Westerners hold strange notions about it, many clinical studies have proven it to be rather effective (Kaptchuk 20). Of course, our assessment of the Chinese medicine depends on the way we define science; keeping in mind that this particular medical practice is mostly a tradition that has survived centuries, nevertheless, having been developed based on “the conscientious observation of phenomena, guided by a rational, logically consistent, and communicable thought process” (Kaptchuk 18).

However, what we define as Chinese medicine in the present day America is, of course, not the undistorted reflection of the ancient medical practices used by the foreign land physicians. We are mostly familiar with an Americanized version of Chinese medicine, which is itself a subject to certain internal tension, having included at least three distinct groups of Chinese American practitioners following the teachings of two different schools. In addition, there is a certain area of practice, which still remains outside of the legal field (Barnes).

Nevertheless, acupuncture in America has found its way into becoming a professionally recognized medical field. At first it has been treated with suspicion, illegal in some places, in others classified as an “experimental procedure” requiring the supervision of a doctor or other medical specialist (Barnes). Now, however, it is easy to find a specialized training offered in this discipline. The question is, of course, how much authenticity has remained in the standardized procedures used by the American practicians of the Chinese medicine, and whether it is going to be changed even further by the processes of professionalizing filtered with US biomedical standards, or by current redefining the role of an acupuncturist in the health care field.

Another aspect to consider, is the unprecedented popularity of the alternative medical practices in general, and acupuncture in particular, among the American public. While some people hold a very mystified view of the Eastern methods, and other call for the extensive clinical trial, many adults in the United States often turn to alternative medicine in search of the aspects which the traditional medicine simply lacks (Barnes).

The reasons for such popularity might be the negative perception of the traditional technocratic medicine in the USA. Returning to the earlier discussion of the traditional Chinese approach to the medical treatment, one can recall this approach to be genuinely holistic, which naturally proves to be favored more among patients.

In conclusion, it can be said that traditional Chinese medicine in the United States of America remains to be a complex field, classified as a part of alternative medicine, still being in transition along with the whole health care system of our country as well as with our understanding of what the overall physician’s role should be. Acupuncture itself consists of several trends, some of them having little resemblance of the traditional ancient ways of Chinese practicians after being reduced considerably by the process of professionalization. Nevertheless, as the notion of traditional American medicine will continue to grow more and more diverse, becoming even more culturally sensitive, some of the medical practices we now call alternative are going to be deeply incorporated in it in the nearest future. As for the field of the alternative medicine, it has already proven to be so profitable that it is highly unlikely that it would change its pattern of continuous growth and expansion.

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