Alternative Therapies
abracad, · Categories: healing, reviews, science and spirituality, spiritualityThe BBC in collaboration with the Open University is currently airing a mini documentary series on Alternative Therapies. Kathy Sykes, professor of Public Engagement in Science and Engineering investigates the evidence for and against various established alternative therapies. In the programs screened so far Sykes has covered hypnotherapy and reflexology. In that remaining she will look at meditation.
As a scientist Sykes, unsurprisingly, begins from a skeptical point of view. But on both topics both covered she has concluded with the admission that there may be something in it after all.
Hypnotherapy is about putting the subject into an altered state of consciousness with a view to influencing the subconscious at its most suggestible. Though scientific opinion is wildly divided, the most recent experiments involving scans of subject brain activity with and without hypnosis indicate that the hypnotic state does invoke very different physiological reactions. Most remarkable was the footage of a dental patient undergoing extractions and implants (including drilling into the bone!) without anesthesia.
Reflexology is the process of foot massage with the intention of causing beneficial effects on specific parts of the body as a whole. Sykes was unable to find any scientific evidence for why reflexology might be effective, but she did discover first-hand the benefits of physical contact.
The final show to be screened next week will look at meditation.
Modern conventional medicine, with the benefit of thousands of years of research, does indeed have an impressive (but by no means comprehensive) knowledge of the workings of the physical body, and it would indeed be foolish for those suffering sickness to reject its many benefits. But at the same time one cannot help consider the limitations of scientific thinking.
Science itself widely recognizes the so-called placebo effect in which the belief that some treatment will be effective is enough to produce an effect (regardless of the treatment). But science continues to look for purely deterministic explanations for how treatments operate. This is legitimate, as far as it goes, but let's not close our eyes to those treatments that may not have an obviously deterministic effect (within the limits of our knowledge) but do help patients just the same.
Science is indeed king within its own realm, but that realm is but a tiny fraction of all that exists. Alternative therapies seek to understand the bigger picture. They may not entirely succeed, and not all are even on the right track at all. But we owe it to ourselves to at least give room to explore those alternatives that might be consistently beneficial.
The bottom line is avail yourself of the advantages of modern conventional medicine, but alongside this maintain an open mind to alternative approaches of treating the same condition. Worst ways they will do no harm while conventional treatment does its best, but maybe the alternative(s) may just do some good. Best ways we see what's commonly regarded a miracle.
View at http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/
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Filed in: healing, reviews, science and spirituality, spirituality
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