Complementary Therapy

Complementary Therapy and our Role in Healthcare

Complementary Therapy, Holistic Therapy, and Alternative Therapy, are all descriptions of treatments offered to help facilitate the healing process by bringing the body back into homeostasis (balance) for physical and emotional wellness.

According to the NHS website – ‘Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) is treatment that falls outside of mainstream healthcare.’

It is interesting that the services offered by integrative and holistic therapists are considered non-mainstream but not surprising as the NHS and the traditional medical system believes itself as the only authority and approach to healthcare.

Many Doctors and Consutants are still wary of Complementary Therapies and are reluctant to work alongside us at best dismissing our value, at worse seeing us as woo woo wierdo’s. Their inflexible and misinformed beliefs and assumptions about our work, I believe, actually places additional pressures on the NHS, with many people stuck and suffering on long waiting lists when they could be helped and supported outside of the ‘system’ but are instead feeling abandoned. 

A government report in on The Value of Complementary Therapies in Supporting the UK’s Health, states:

‘Complementary therapies play an integral role ‘supporting everyone’s health and mental well being. However, the sector’s value contribution and position as a professional industry is often misinterpreted and overlooked. Medical professionals could be better informed on the merits of these therapies and how they can refer patients through the use of social prescriptions to deliver better outcomes for patients, especially for those who experienced chronic pain or mental health conditions. And for the public purse.’

Holistic health under researched (due to zero interest by big pharma to fund research), undervalued and misrepresented, could in fact help the NHS that is struggling with so many sick people, feeling lost on waiting lists, in pain, getting worse when they could be helped to either manage their symptoms or get better through the support of qualified, experienced, intuitive and caring therapists like myself and my colleagues. 

The Report states that:

‘Complementary Therapies when adopted by and integrated with the NHS have most invariably been cost effective and resulted in increased satisfaction of service users with little risk or no risk of harm. Treatments such as massage can play a vital role in helping those with long term health conditions manage their symptoms.’

9 out of 10 people in the UK have tried a complementary therapy, 90% of which is outside of the NHS. A survey by the Federation of Holistic Therapists shows the positive effects of Complementary Therapy practices alongside health care, including a 37% reduction in doctor’s visits. Other findings indicate that the complementary therapy treatments helped with stress and anxiety (54%) muscular pains (41%), lower back pain(26%) joint problems (22%) and tiredness and fatigue (22%).

I believe that Conventional Medicine has it’s place, however, I don’t believe the ‘MAINSTREAM’ approach to health is the ONLY way of helping people to feel better. There can be an over reliance on medicine to quickly fix instead of helping people to best support their healing, immune system, recovery and overall health and preventing sickness and disease. 

Complementary Therapy offers:

• TIME! Face to face with a professional to discuss physical and mental health concerns
• Continuity of care and relationship
• A whole body / person approach to healthcare
• An understanding of how illness, accidents, trauma, and emotional / mental health affect each other
• Support and help with taking control of ones own health and healing
• Explanations and understanding of the biomachanics of the human body as well as physiology, and diagnosis
• Relief from pain and discomfort
• Mental / emotional health support
• Self – Care advice including: Exercise, diet and lifestyle considerations that may help

The NHS is now social prescribing holistic therapies to help make them accessibile to everyone as ‘it can provide life changing support for those with conditions such as hormone imbalance, puberty, fertility issues, pregnancy, menopause, anxiety and stress to name a few. A report by the social prescribing network suggests that by referring patients seeking help for non medical issues to community based non clinical services could help take the pressure off overstretched. GP and health care services.’

However, we still have a long way to go when medical professionals have little or no training in subjects like nutrition (the foundation of health and healing) and unless they have personally benefited from Holistic Therapies themselves, still have limited understanding of our important role in the healthcare sector and how we could actually help save the NHS time and money. 

 

I am a Holistic Therapist working in Wrington, North Somerset and offer reflexology, holistic massage, EFT, Reiki and Gentle Release Therapy for general health and wellbeing.