About the Article
Published in:
Vol. 5, No. 2
Category:
Editorials
About the Author
Wallace Sampson, Editor
Science and Postmodern Criticism
Fringe Psychotherapies: The Public at Risk
State of the Art
The following developments over the past year should be of interest. It has been increasingly obvious that the “alternative medicine” movement has not been generated by public demand. Dr. Gorski’s analysis in this journal a year ago showed interest in “alternative” methods to be much less than claimed—perhaps as little as a quarter of the 34 to 44% so often quoted. The demand has been generated on one hand by ideological movements, and on the other by economic interests. The former include spiritual and religious healing cults, “New Age” consciousness expansion beliefs, and academic movements of cultural relativism and postmodernism. The economic forces include unscientific practitioner guilds such as chiropractic, traditional Chinese medicine and acupuncture, naturopathy, and the vitamin supplement industry. These interests over some fifty years or more have amassed enough power and following to challenge rational science and ethical medicine as the standards for conduct, and to demand and receive acknowledgment by government and other institutions.
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