How Holistic is Complementary and Alternative Med-icine (CAM)? Examining Self-Responsibilization in CAM and Biomedicine in a Neoliberal Age
Main Article Content
Abstract
This review paper adds to recent social science interrogation of common boundaries between CAM (complementary and alternative medicine) and biomedicine, by examining an unquestioned dichotomy often ascribed to them: holism vs. individualism. Drawing from social scientific literature review, this paper draws attention to the individualistic focus of CAM by situating contemporary CAM developments within a neoliberal climate that emphasizes individual responsibility for health care. Focusing on the individualistic features of CAM helps rethink commonly held assumptions regarding the holistic features of CAM, which tend to gain the most attention in popular and scholarly representations of CAM as distinct from biomedicine. As well, the individualistic features of CAM shed light on the significant role of CAM in health care as a form of individual consumptive choice rather than as a collective responsibility on the part of the state to complement national health care systems.
Keywords:
Complementary and Alternative Medicine, Biomedicine, Individual Responsibility, Neoliberal Governance
Article Details
How to Cite
NING, Ana M..
How Holistic is Complementary and Alternative Med-icine (CAM)? Examining Self-Responsibilization in CAM and Biomedicine in a Neoliberal Age.
Medical Research Archives, [S.l.], v. 6, n. 5, may 2018.
ISSN 2375-1924.
Available at: <https://esmed.org/MRA/mra/article/view/1750>. Date accessed: 22 dec. 2024.
doi: https://doi.org/10.18103/mra.v6i5.1750.
Section
Review Articles
The Medical Research Archives grants authors the right to publish and reproduce the unrevised contribution in whole or in part at any time and in any form for any scholarly non-commercial purpose with the condition that all publications of the contribution include a full citation to the journal as published by the Medical Research Archives.
References
REFERENCES
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Barnes, L. 2005. “American Acupuncture and Efficacy: Meanings and their Points of Insertion”. Medical Anthropology Quarterly 19(3): 239-266.
Barnes, P. et al. 2004. “CAM Use among Adults: United States, 2002”. Seminars in Integrative Medicine, 2(2): 54-71.
Barry, C. 2006. “The Role of Evidence in Alternative Medicine: Contrasting Biomedical Anthro-pological Approaches”. Social Science and Medicine, 62(11): 2646-2657.
Broom, A. and Tovey, P. 2008. “Exploring the Temporal Dimension in Cancer Patients’ Experi-ences of Nonbiomedical Therapeutics”. Qualitative Health Research, 18(12): 1650–61.
Brosnan, C. 2016. “Epistemic Cultures in Complementary Medicine: Knowledge-Making in Uni-versity Departments of Osteopathy and Chinese Medicine”. Health Sociology Review, 25(2): 171-186.
Butler, J. 2013. ‘For White Girls Only?’: Postmodernism and the Politics of Inclusion. Feminist Formations, 25(1): 35–58.
Chacko, E. 2003. “Culture and Therapy: Complementary Strategies for the Treatment of Type-2 Diabetes in an Urban Setting in Kerala, India”. Social Science and Medicine, 56(5): 1087–98.
Childerhose, J. and MacDonald, M. 2013. “Health Consumption as Work: The Home Pregnancy Test as a Domesticated Health Tool”. Social Science and Medicine Vol. 86: 1-8.
Connor, L. 2004. “Relief, Risk and Renewal: Mixed Therapy Regimens in an Australian Suburb”. Social Science and Medicine, 59(8): 1695–705.
Coulter, I. 2004. “Integration and Paradigm Clash: The Practical Difficulties of Integrative Medi-cine”. In The Mainstreaming of Complementary and Alternative Medicine: Studies in Social Con-text, edited by P. Tovey, J. Adams, and G. Easthope, 103-122. London, England: Routledge.
Crawford, R. 1994. “The Boundaries of the Self and the Unhealthy Other. Reflections on Health, Culture and AIDS”. Social Science and Medicine, 38(1): 1349-1370.
Dew, K. et. al. 2008. “‘You Just Got to Eat Healthy’: The Topic of CAM in the General Practice Consultation”. Health Sociology Review,Vol. 17: 396–409.
Eskinazi, D. 1998. “Factors that Shape Alternative Medicine”. Journal of the American Medical Association, 280 (18): 1621–1625.
Esmail, N. 2017. “Executive Summary: CAM: Use and Public Attitudes 1997, 2006 and 2016”. www.fraserinstitute.org
Evans, B. 1999. “Contemporary Therapies and HIV Infection”. American Journal of Nursing, 99(2): 42-45.
Fadlon, J. 2004. “Meridians, Chakras and Psycho-Neuro-Immunology: The Dematerializing Body and the Domestication of Alternative Medicine”. Body and Society, 10(4): 69–86.
Foucault, M. 1973. The Birth of the Clinic: An Archaeology of Medical Perception. New York: Vintage Books.
Foucault, M. 1980. Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings 1972-1977. New York: Vintage Books.
Fries, C. 2008. “Governing the Health of the Hybrid Self: Integrative Medicine, Neoliberalism, and the Shifting Biopolitics of Subjectivity”. Health Sociology Review, Vol. 17: 353–367.
Fries, C. 2013. “Self-Care and Complementary and Alternative Medicine as Care for the Self: An Embodied Basis for Distinction”. Health Sociology Review, 22(1): 37–51.
Fuller, S. W. A. 2010. Science: The Art of Living. Durham, NC: Acumen.
Gale, N. 2011. “From Body-Talk to Body-Stories: Body Work in Complementary and Alterna-tive Medicine”. Sociology of Health & Illness, 33(2): 237–51.
Gale, N. 2014. “The Sociology of Traditional, Complementary and Alternative Medicine”. Soci-ology Compass, 8(6): 805–822.
Gilmour, J. 2001. “Regulators, CAM and Evidence Bases: Shifting Sands and Buried Conflicts. Final Report of an Invitational Workshop on Complementary and Alternative Medicine: The Question of Appropriate Evidence Bases”. Toronto: York University Centre for Health Studies and Vancouver: The Tzu Chi Institute for Complementary and Alternative Medicine.
Givati, A. 2015. “Performing ‘Pragmatic Holism’: Professionalisation and the Holistic Discourse of Non-Medically Qualified Acupuncturists and Homeopaths in the United Kingdom”. Health, 19(1): 34–50.
Hare, M. 1993. “The Emergence of an Urban U.S. Chinese Medicine”. Medical Anthropology Quarterly, Vol. 7: 30–49.
Iedema, R. and Veljanova, I. 2013. “Lifestyle Science: Self-Healing, Co-Production and DIY”. Health Sociology Review, 22(1): 2–7.
Kelner, M. and Wellman, B. 1997. “Health Care and Consumer Choice: Medical and Alternative thera¬pies. Social Science and Medicine, 45(2): 203–212.
Kelner, M. and Wellman, B. 2000. “Introduction: Complementary and Alternative Medicine: Challenge and Change. In Complementary and Alternative Medicine: Challenge and Change edited by Kelner, M., Wellman, B., Pescosolido, B. and Saks M., 1-24. Australia: Harwood Academic Publishers.
Kleinman, A. 1988. Rethinking Psychiatry. New York: The Free Press.
Lavrence, C. and Lozanski, K. 2014. “‘This is not your practice life’: Lululemon and the Neolib-eral Governance of Self. Canadian Review of Sociology, 51(1): 76-94.
Lee-Treweek, G. 2001. “‘I’m not ill, it’s just this back’: Osteopathic Treatment, Responsibility and Back Problems”. Health, 5(1): 31-49.
Little, M., et al. 2007. “Pragmatic Pluralism: Mutual Tolerance of Contested Understandings be-tween Orthodox and Alternative Practitioners in Autologous Stem Cell Transplantation”. Social Science and Medicine, 64(7): 1512–23.
Lupton, D. 1999. “Developing the “Whole Me”: Citizenship, Neo-liberalism and the Contempo-rary Health and Physical Education Curriculum”. Critical Public Health, 9(4): 287–300.
MacArtney, J. and Wahlberg, A. 2014. “The Problem of Complementary and Alternative Medi-cine Use Today: Eyes Half Closed?”. Qualitative Health Research 24(1): 114–23.
McClean, S. 2005. “The Illness is Part of the Person: Discourses of Blame, Individual Responsi-bility and Individuation at a Centre for Spiritual Healing in the North of England”. Sociology of Health and Illness, 27(5): 628-648.
Ning, A. 2013. “How ‘Alternative’ is CAM? Rethinking Conventional Dichotomies between Biomedicine and Complementary/Alternative Medicine”. Health, 17(2): 135-158.
Öhlén, J., et al. 2006. “The influence of Significant Others in Complementary and Alternative Medicine Decisions by Cancer Patients”. Social Science and Medicine, 63(6): 1625–36.
Pawluch, D. et al., 2000. “Lay Practitioners of HIV and Complementary Therapy Use”. Social Science and Medicine, 51(2): 251-264.
Park, C. 2002.”Diversity, the Individual and Proof of Efficacy: CAM’s Medical Education”. American Journal of Public Health, 92(10): 1568-1572.
Quah, S. 2008. “Epilogue: In Pursuit of Health: Pragmatic Acculturation in Everyday Life”. Health Sociology Review, 17: 419–422.
Qu, A. 2004. “Opportunity and Challenge: Impact of Natural Health Product Regulation on TCM in Canada”. Paper presented in The Art and Science of Traditional Medicine: An International Conference to Explore Medical Practices from Cultures Around the Globe, Ryerson University, Toronto, May 8, 2004.
Rose, N. 1999. Powers of Freedom: Reframing Political Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge Uni-versity Press.
Sered, S. and Agigian, A. 2008. “Holistic Sickening: Breast Cancer and the Discursive Worlds of Complementary and Alternative Practitioners”. Sociology of Health and Illness, 30(4): 616-631.
Shippee, T. et al. 2012. “Beyond the Barriers: Racial Discrimination and Use of Complementary and Alternative Medicine among Black Americans”. Social Science and Medicine 74(8): 1155–62.
Songwathana, P. and Manderson, L. 2001. “Stigma and Rejection: Living with AIDS in Villages in Southern Thailand”. Medical Anthropology, 20, 1-23.
Sontag, S. 1978. Illness as Metaphor: New York: Vintage Books.
Tataryn, D., and Verhoef, M. 2001. “Combining Conventional, Complementary and Alternative Health Care: A Vision of Integration”. In Perspectives on Complementary and Alternative Health Care: A Collection of Papers Prepared for Health Canada, 87-109. Ottawa: Health Canada.
Thorpe, R. 2008. “Integrating Biomedical and CAM Approaches: The Experiences of People Living with HIV/AIDS”. Health Sociology Review, Vol. 17: 410–418.
Torri, M. 2012. “Perceptions of the Use of Complementary Therapy and Siddha Medicine among Rural Patients with HIV/AIDS: A Case Study from India”. The International Journal of Health Planning and Management, 20(11):803-811.
Wanless, D. 2004. Securing Good Health for the Whole Population: Population Health Trends. London, England: UK Treasury.
World Health Organization 2016. Traditional, Complementary and Alternative Medicine: Policy and Public Health Perspectives. http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes86/1/07-046458/en/
Ziguras, C. 2004. Self-care: Embodiment, Personal Autonomy and the Shaping of Health Con-sciousness. New York, NY: Routledge.
Zhan, M. 2009. Other-worldly: Making Chinese Medicine through Transnational Frames. Dur-ham, NC: Duke University Press.
Zhan, M. 2014. “The Empirical as Conceptual: Transdisciplinary Engagements with an “Experi-ential Medicine’”. Science, Technology and Human Values, 39(2): 236-263.
Baarts, C. and Pedersen, I. 2009. “Derivative Benefits: Exploring the Body through Complemen-tary and Alternative medicine”. Sociology of Health and Illness, 31(5): 1–15.
Barnes, L. 2005. “American Acupuncture and Efficacy: Meanings and their Points of Insertion”. Medical Anthropology Quarterly 19(3): 239-266.
Barnes, P. et al. 2004. “CAM Use among Adults: United States, 2002”. Seminars in Integrative Medicine, 2(2): 54-71.
Barry, C. 2006. “The Role of Evidence in Alternative Medicine: Contrasting Biomedical Anthro-pological Approaches”. Social Science and Medicine, 62(11): 2646-2657.
Broom, A. and Tovey, P. 2008. “Exploring the Temporal Dimension in Cancer Patients’ Experi-ences of Nonbiomedical Therapeutics”. Qualitative Health Research, 18(12): 1650–61.
Brosnan, C. 2016. “Epistemic Cultures in Complementary Medicine: Knowledge-Making in Uni-versity Departments of Osteopathy and Chinese Medicine”. Health Sociology Review, 25(2): 171-186.
Butler, J. 2013. ‘For White Girls Only?’: Postmodernism and the Politics of Inclusion. Feminist Formations, 25(1): 35–58.
Chacko, E. 2003. “Culture and Therapy: Complementary Strategies for the Treatment of Type-2 Diabetes in an Urban Setting in Kerala, India”. Social Science and Medicine, 56(5): 1087–98.
Childerhose, J. and MacDonald, M. 2013. “Health Consumption as Work: The Home Pregnancy Test as a Domesticated Health Tool”. Social Science and Medicine Vol. 86: 1-8.
Connor, L. 2004. “Relief, Risk and Renewal: Mixed Therapy Regimens in an Australian Suburb”. Social Science and Medicine, 59(8): 1695–705.
Coulter, I. 2004. “Integration and Paradigm Clash: The Practical Difficulties of Integrative Medi-cine”. In The Mainstreaming of Complementary and Alternative Medicine: Studies in Social Con-text, edited by P. Tovey, J. Adams, and G. Easthope, 103-122. London, England: Routledge.
Crawford, R. 1994. “The Boundaries of the Self and the Unhealthy Other. Reflections on Health, Culture and AIDS”. Social Science and Medicine, 38(1): 1349-1370.
Dew, K. et. al. 2008. “‘You Just Got to Eat Healthy’: The Topic of CAM in the General Practice Consultation”. Health Sociology Review,Vol. 17: 396–409.
Eskinazi, D. 1998. “Factors that Shape Alternative Medicine”. Journal of the American Medical Association, 280 (18): 1621–1625.
Esmail, N. 2017. “Executive Summary: CAM: Use and Public Attitudes 1997, 2006 and 2016”. www.fraserinstitute.org
Evans, B. 1999. “Contemporary Therapies and HIV Infection”. American Journal of Nursing, 99(2): 42-45.
Fadlon, J. 2004. “Meridians, Chakras and Psycho-Neuro-Immunology: The Dematerializing Body and the Domestication of Alternative Medicine”. Body and Society, 10(4): 69–86.
Foucault, M. 1973. The Birth of the Clinic: An Archaeology of Medical Perception. New York: Vintage Books.
Foucault, M. 1980. Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings 1972-1977. New York: Vintage Books.
Fries, C. 2008. “Governing the Health of the Hybrid Self: Integrative Medicine, Neoliberalism, and the Shifting Biopolitics of Subjectivity”. Health Sociology Review, Vol. 17: 353–367.
Fries, C. 2013. “Self-Care and Complementary and Alternative Medicine as Care for the Self: An Embodied Basis for Distinction”. Health Sociology Review, 22(1): 37–51.
Fuller, S. W. A. 2010. Science: The Art of Living. Durham, NC: Acumen.
Gale, N. 2011. “From Body-Talk to Body-Stories: Body Work in Complementary and Alterna-tive Medicine”. Sociology of Health & Illness, 33(2): 237–51.
Gale, N. 2014. “The Sociology of Traditional, Complementary and Alternative Medicine”. Soci-ology Compass, 8(6): 805–822.
Gilmour, J. 2001. “Regulators, CAM and Evidence Bases: Shifting Sands and Buried Conflicts. Final Report of an Invitational Workshop on Complementary and Alternative Medicine: The Question of Appropriate Evidence Bases”. Toronto: York University Centre for Health Studies and Vancouver: The Tzu Chi Institute for Complementary and Alternative Medicine.
Givati, A. 2015. “Performing ‘Pragmatic Holism’: Professionalisation and the Holistic Discourse of Non-Medically Qualified Acupuncturists and Homeopaths in the United Kingdom”. Health, 19(1): 34–50.
Hare, M. 1993. “The Emergence of an Urban U.S. Chinese Medicine”. Medical Anthropology Quarterly, Vol. 7: 30–49.
Iedema, R. and Veljanova, I. 2013. “Lifestyle Science: Self-Healing, Co-Production and DIY”. Health Sociology Review, 22(1): 2–7.
Kelner, M. and Wellman, B. 1997. “Health Care and Consumer Choice: Medical and Alternative thera¬pies. Social Science and Medicine, 45(2): 203–212.
Kelner, M. and Wellman, B. 2000. “Introduction: Complementary and Alternative Medicine: Challenge and Change. In Complementary and Alternative Medicine: Challenge and Change edited by Kelner, M., Wellman, B., Pescosolido, B. and Saks M., 1-24. Australia: Harwood Academic Publishers.
Kleinman, A. 1988. Rethinking Psychiatry. New York: The Free Press.
Lavrence, C. and Lozanski, K. 2014. “‘This is not your practice life’: Lululemon and the Neolib-eral Governance of Self. Canadian Review of Sociology, 51(1): 76-94.
Lee-Treweek, G. 2001. “‘I’m not ill, it’s just this back’: Osteopathic Treatment, Responsibility and Back Problems”. Health, 5(1): 31-49.
Little, M., et al. 2007. “Pragmatic Pluralism: Mutual Tolerance of Contested Understandings be-tween Orthodox and Alternative Practitioners in Autologous Stem Cell Transplantation”. Social Science and Medicine, 64(7): 1512–23.
Lupton, D. 1999. “Developing the “Whole Me”: Citizenship, Neo-liberalism and the Contempo-rary Health and Physical Education Curriculum”. Critical Public Health, 9(4): 287–300.
MacArtney, J. and Wahlberg, A. 2014. “The Problem of Complementary and Alternative Medi-cine Use Today: Eyes Half Closed?”. Qualitative Health Research 24(1): 114–23.
McClean, S. 2005. “The Illness is Part of the Person: Discourses of Blame, Individual Responsi-bility and Individuation at a Centre for Spiritual Healing in the North of England”. Sociology of Health and Illness, 27(5): 628-648.
Ning, A. 2013. “How ‘Alternative’ is CAM? Rethinking Conventional Dichotomies between Biomedicine and Complementary/Alternative Medicine”. Health, 17(2): 135-158.
Öhlén, J., et al. 2006. “The influence of Significant Others in Complementary and Alternative Medicine Decisions by Cancer Patients”. Social Science and Medicine, 63(6): 1625–36.
Pawluch, D. et al., 2000. “Lay Practitioners of HIV and Complementary Therapy Use”. Social Science and Medicine, 51(2): 251-264.
Park, C. 2002.”Diversity, the Individual and Proof of Efficacy: CAM’s Medical Education”. American Journal of Public Health, 92(10): 1568-1572.
Quah, S. 2008. “Epilogue: In Pursuit of Health: Pragmatic Acculturation in Everyday Life”. Health Sociology Review, 17: 419–422.
Qu, A. 2004. “Opportunity and Challenge: Impact of Natural Health Product Regulation on TCM in Canada”. Paper presented in The Art and Science of Traditional Medicine: An International Conference to Explore Medical Practices from Cultures Around the Globe, Ryerson University, Toronto, May 8, 2004.
Rose, N. 1999. Powers of Freedom: Reframing Political Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge Uni-versity Press.
Sered, S. and Agigian, A. 2008. “Holistic Sickening: Breast Cancer and the Discursive Worlds of Complementary and Alternative Practitioners”. Sociology of Health and Illness, 30(4): 616-631.
Shippee, T. et al. 2012. “Beyond the Barriers: Racial Discrimination and Use of Complementary and Alternative Medicine among Black Americans”. Social Science and Medicine 74(8): 1155–62.
Songwathana, P. and Manderson, L. 2001. “Stigma and Rejection: Living with AIDS in Villages in Southern Thailand”. Medical Anthropology, 20, 1-23.
Sontag, S. 1978. Illness as Metaphor: New York: Vintage Books.
Tataryn, D., and Verhoef, M. 2001. “Combining Conventional, Complementary and Alternative Health Care: A Vision of Integration”. In Perspectives on Complementary and Alternative Health Care: A Collection of Papers Prepared for Health Canada, 87-109. Ottawa: Health Canada.
Thorpe, R. 2008. “Integrating Biomedical and CAM Approaches: The Experiences of People Living with HIV/AIDS”. Health Sociology Review, Vol. 17: 410–418.
Torri, M. 2012. “Perceptions of the Use of Complementary Therapy and Siddha Medicine among Rural Patients with HIV/AIDS: A Case Study from India”. The International Journal of Health Planning and Management, 20(11):803-811.
Wanless, D. 2004. Securing Good Health for the Whole Population: Population Health Trends. London, England: UK Treasury.
World Health Organization 2016. Traditional, Complementary and Alternative Medicine: Policy and Public Health Perspectives. http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes86/1/07-046458/en/
Ziguras, C. 2004. Self-care: Embodiment, Personal Autonomy and the Shaping of Health Con-sciousness. New York, NY: Routledge.
Zhan, M. 2009. Other-worldly: Making Chinese Medicine through Transnational Frames. Dur-ham, NC: Duke University Press.
Zhan, M. 2014. “The Empirical as Conceptual: Transdisciplinary Engagements with an “Experi-ential Medicine’”. Science, Technology and Human Values, 39(2): 236-263.