alternative medicine

[Adam Blatner]

Dear All, 
    I want to remind folks about the presence of at least a thousand claims by alternative healing proponents about different nutrients and other programs. It is convenient to assume the paranoid stance that big drug companies are suppressing the truth, but we should note that long before big pharma this cultural trend has been prevalent. Even granted that 50 of the 1000 might be absolutely true and would represent fundamental revolutions in not just treatment, but also in the understanding of disease, we would still have the problem of assessing which 50 out of the thousand those valid approaches were.
      This requires the hard work of science, of asking, "but is it so?" and being aware of the many rhetorical devices, logical pitfalls, and other errors that ordinary scientists have to wrestle with. 
      Could it be that many claims have been tested and re-tested and not found valid, such as the aforementioned "ortho-molecular" psychiatry approach?
      It is also true that even after repeated tests and evaluations by panels truly trying to be impartial, such as those evaluating the idea that autism is caused by immunization, and finding no connection, that a significant portion of parents---perhaps a fourth---continue to believe it does. Ditto a certain percentage of people who continue to believe that President Obama is not really an Americn by birth. 
     So the recent exchange about alternative healing approaches and diet, while peripheral to our common interest, nevertheless is useful in reminding us that many psychotherapists view psychodrama as a similarly unproven methodology and that the research basis for our work could use further support. All fields have occasions to be reminded to resist the lure of short-cuts and the challenge of critical thinking. 
     Warmly, Adam
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