Introduction: In her 1990 study of complimentary and alternative medicine, Rosalind Coward asserts that the broader implications of the twentieth century philosophical and cultural shift towards alternative medical practices “are far more significant than whether or not a particular therapy ‘works.’ For at the center of these changes are new concepts of nature, health, the body and individuals’ role in health” (5).
We will be taking our initial heuristic cues from Coward’s timely observations and focus on the “new” or “alternative” health goals and approaches brought to the fore by today’s evolving societal priorities, cultural attitudes, and advances in communication technology. Our emphasis will fall on how complimentary and alternative healthcare models, methods, and values might compete with or even rewrite the priorities and methods of conventional healthcare delivery.
Required Readings:
Stefano: Holism and Complementary Medicine: The Making of a New Medicine (2006);
Ukoha and Stranieri: Bakhtinian View of Social Media in Health Care (2020);
Assorted essays about online healthcare.
Sources you find on your own. Scholarly journals, magazines, academic studies, online videos and resources, etc. (*Please be sure to include a Works Cited page this time around.)
Prompt:
First, you must choose an alternative healing tradition, concept, and/or practice.
Then answer the following prompt in a thesis-driven essay:
What alternate or complimentary vision of health or healing does your practice endorse; and to what extent is this vision a critique of contemporary medical theory or practice?
Getting Started:
As always, you probably want to start by narrowing your focus. Consider what specific aspects of western medical orthodoxy/practice your chosen practice or approach might challenge. To what extent, you might ask, does your topic’s concepts or practices rely on alternative models of society, nature, the body, or the individual’s role in their own health? In other words, consider how your alternative practice/approach seeks to rewrite the assumptions, myths, or belief system surrounding current mainstream medical treatment. Concomitantly, you might consider how new technology-driven practices such as TikTok or telehealth propose competing models of health, healing, personal agency, or the doctor-patient relationship.
