Holistic Remedies

The Rise of Alternative Therapy

There is no question about it, we have all become much more health-conscious in recent years. We have become less likely to trust what the medical profession says, more suspicious of what food manufacturers say about the foods they distribute and generally more inclined to question received wisdom about health matters.

This has been accompanied by a rise of interest in alternative therapies and treatments that seems to be ever increasing in popularity. The situation appears to reveal a general trend, at least in the West, so what exactly is going on? Why have we become less trusting and where is it all going to lead? Good questions – but let’s begin by first taking a look backward.

Treatments such as herbal remedies, home-made ointments, tinctures, compresses and all manner of applications were much more commonplace a few generations ago. Our immediate ancestors i.e. parents and grandparents, gradually replaced their faith in such remedies and cures with their faith in the pills that are so readily prescribed for all manner of ailments these days.

You name the illness, and almost certainly there is a pill you can get that is supposed to help you to rid yourself of it. However, the trend described above is a trend away from such faith in such chemical solutions and back to the very remedies our recent forbears rejected. The reason seems to be a lack of conviction in the minds of many people that the answer to their problems can be found in pills.

The prescription of pills is generally aimed at symptoms rather than underlying causes. Pain relief, for example, which can certainly be achieved by taking pills is so commonly the response of the medical profession; rather than looking for why pain exists in the first place and assisting in achieving a permanent solution. Take back pain as an example. Go to the doctor with back pain and you get pain killers. Go to an holistic practitioner and you are confronted with your bad sitting posture.

Of course the medical profession should concern itself with pain. It should prescribe pain killers, but it should not stop there. We need doctors who are prepared to investigate underlying causes and permanently solve problems; rather than just providing quick-fix temporary solutions – which is what pain-killers are.

So perhaps the answer lies in the medical profession making an effort to return, a little, to its roots; embracing alternative treatments where they are helpful, thinking much more holistically and making a commitment to issue less pills as the knee-jerk reaction to almost everything. If this were to happen, the only losers would be the drug companies.

Will Edwards
http://www.articlesbase.com/alternative-medicine-articles/the-rise-of-alternative-therapy-730131.html