Book Description:
The Western medical tradition is underpinned by systematic investigation and an apparent clarity of medical research and has thus largely remained unquestioned, being greatly preferred in our culture to the mysteries of self cure which have traditionally been dismissed as inferior or even 'primitive'. The possibility that medicine is looking in the wrong place has rarely been considered, until fairly recently when, despite its many advances, it has become clear that throughout the Western world there is a profound crisis in medicine, and a growing disillusionment and dissatisfaction with health care, not least among those who provide it. This book challenges the popular structural or economic explanations for the current crisis, proposing a more fundamental approach. It argues that the crisis is neither structural nor economical in origin, but rather a direct result of an outdated and fundamentally flawed world view. While the physical sciences have recognized this and have attempted to revise this model along lines which are strikingly similar to those of Oriental and ancient traditions, medicine has ignored these developments, leaving it with an antiquated set of guiding beliefs. The author argues that if modern medicine is to be in the vanguard of scientific progress, there needs to be a general recognition and acceptance of alternative approaches to healing as being complementary to scientific medicine and as in need of serious consideration. The author gives accounts of various complementary methods of healing and the perspectives on which they are based, providing a synthesis of current trends in this field, indicating future developments and providing a concise integrative framework for the widely diverse concerns embraced by the psychology of healing.
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