In recent years, ‘holistic health centres’ have mushroomed. Such establishments, which sometimes also use the term ‘integrated’ or ‘integrative’ instead of holistic, offer a range of ‘alternative’ therapies and promise to treat not just the patients' somatic problems but to also address their psychological and spiritual needs. Patients normally pay out of their own pockets. Here I discuss two (partly hypothetical and necessarily simplified) scenarios in order to critically analyse this practice.
Our patient is a 56-year-old male carpenter, Mr Nash, who has always been physically active, is not overweight, has smoked about 20 cigarettes per day for the last 30 years, and last consulted his GP 1.5 years ago. He enjoys 1–2 pints of beer per day, takes no prescription medicines and states that he has no relevant medical history; both his parents suffer from cardiovascular problems. Mr Nash seeks medical help because he has not felt well for about 4 weeks. In particular, he suffers from insomnia, fatigue and pain in his left-upper arm and shoulder. He believes that these symptoms started when, together with a friend, he carried a fridge-freezer to his fourth floor flat.
THE ‘HOLISTIC’ APPROACH
Mr Nash decides to follow his wife's advice and visits a local holistic health centre. He initially sees a practitioner who takes a brief history and refers him to the centre's homeopath, chiropractor and healer. The homeopath takes a detailed homeopathic history which lasts 90 minutes but does not examine him in any other way. Eventually the homeopath prescribes …