ABSTRACT
“Alternative” forms of healing and new ideas about how to stay healthy appear to be flourishing in both the United States and Britain. This chapter argues that different forms of allegiance to various alternative medicines are best explained by considering the growing pressures on the conventional doctor-patient encounter in both countries, and the nature of the relationship between practitioner and client which an alternative system of healing offers. The extent of alternative medicine’s resurgence can also be gauged in terms of its success in removing a variety of legal restrictions on its practice. Practitioners of holistic medicine are concerned with more than the simple absence of illness which does not constitute health. Social movements in both countries attacked diverse aspects of the relationship between doctors and patients.
