Mainstream Medicine And Alternative Medicine

by kevin dooley

Mainstream medicine will continue to hinder the acceptance of alternative therapies. There is no doubt that alternative therapies offer some relief. The real question is whether alternative therapies can cure disease.

Mainstream medicines strength lies in its monopoly ofscience — the careful study of natural phenomena, the rigorous documentation of studies, processes, experimentation, and results made about said phenomena, the faithful replication of the study by others, the analysis of the premises and results of the study, and its contribution to science itself. The weakness of alternative medicineis that the effectiveness it claims are mostly anecdotal and when results are verified usingthe scientific method, the results cant stand the scrutiny.

Nevertheless, adherents of alternative medicine contend that alternative healing methods are not meant to cure diseases. Alternative medicine and healing methods were developed as a way for the body to maintain balance. Adherents further assert that if alternative healing methods were not an effective means of maintaining health and wellness, then they would have died a natural death long ago.

An alternative therapy like theta healing will inevitably fail the conditions for validity set forth by science. A close inspection of the principles that govern itand the philosophical schools that have contributed to its evolution may have merit and appeal from a patients vantage point. However, truth and validity claims fall within the province of science, and as far as science is concerned, only Western, mainstream medicine has the imprimatur of its approval.

Theta healing takes its cue from Eastern philosophies that emphasize the importance of knowing thyself through meditation. It also takes its cue from Hinduism. One of its tenets is that one of the things that prevent people from healing is their belief systems. At least a couple of the four levels of belief systems identified by its proponents reference the concept of reincarnation: genetic belief systems and souls belief systems.

Proponents of theta healing begin to lose their audience when they tout the therapys other attributes, such as a persons inherent ability to visualize a disease and how through such visualizations, disease/s can be cured. In the arena of the battle of validity claims, its going to be an uphill battle for advocates of this healing method to have this aspect, in particular, of this healing method validated by mainstream science.