"Persons suffering from mental illness emphasize that understanding one's problems in religious or spiritual terms can be a powerful alternative to a biological or psychological framework"

Yes, but who's going to trust the judgement of people suffering from mental illness?

Seriously, people who are ill, or whose friends and family are ill are not in a position to objectively judge whether one treatment is more effective than another. They will seize on anything which 'works', whether it is a genuine treatment, a placebo, or just something they happened to be doing when they felt better.

If most doctors say that alternative medicine is crap, it's because they're in a better position to know.

There is much that I agree with in this article. However, as I was reading it I detected a utilitarian understanding of spirituality. I think this comes out of the author's Christian Science background. The problem in all of this is that God loses his transcendence and becomes something that we use on our own terms to make us better. It is interesting that we now talk about "spirituality" rather than a relationship with a transcendent and terrifying God. It has all been dumbed down and tamed and integrated into our own scheme of things.
Any "use" of religion for our own purposes is idolatry and God becomes our creature.

The problem with the use of the word "spirituality" is that it may refer to anything. I may get spiritual when drunk or stoned or high on success. These are hardly healthy. "Religion" as such is no panacea. There is religion that enslaves that religion that frees. It is not until you actually look at the fine print or join the community that the truth may be seen.

Certainly, faith has something to do with depression and perhaps a few other health issues. But, for example, all you need is something to go wrong in the growth control processes in one cell and you die of cancer. The link between that going wrong and mental states is yet to be proven. The fact is that we are creatures that cannot control what happens to our bodies, we are subject to hazard. It is often the case that faith determines how we deal with those events when they happen.

Peter Sellick

"It is interesting that we now talk about "spirituality" rather than a relationship with a transcendent and terrifying God."

But Peter, YOU certainly don't talk about a 'transcendent and terrifying God'. According to you the bugger doesn't even exist in any meaningful sense -- although somehow he's still reely reely important (I never understood that bit).

You can hardly blame others for running away from the absurdities of religion when you're pounding away in the same direction as fast as you can go. The only difference is that they're prepared to admit it.

An interesting essay on a very important topic. Important because modern drugs and sugery medicine doesn't really work. Yes it is very good at crisis intevention, patching people up after accidents (even seemingly catastrophic ones), and more often than not, diagnosis. It is quite often good at removing or alleviating the symptoms of acute dis-ease/distress, but it never really heals people at any fundamental level.

One of my favorite authors is Kenneth Pelletier MD. His early book Mind As Healer - Mind As Slayer is a gem. Plus his more recent book Best Alternative Medicine: What Works, What Does Not is excellent.
Then there is Vibrational Medicine by Richard Gerber MD.

Also Planet Medicine: From Stone Age Shamanism to Post-Industrial Healing by Richard Grossinger. A book which provides a unique investigation of the various systems of healing in different times and places - plus a sympathetic examination of the different epistemologies on which they are based. Richard is of course the owner/publisher of North Atlantic Books.

Plus not check out the book by Tom Monte titled World Medicine: The East West Guide To Healing Your Body. And Radical Healing by Rudolf Ballentine MD.

Of course according to the so called skeptics (really true believers) such as JonJ all of the above is horse manure.

Q: What do you call alternative medicine that works (better than a similarly administered placebo)?

A: Medicine.

Cheers,

Tony

A reprise Tony.

Q. What do you call alternative medicine that does not work better than a placebo?

A. Alternative or pretend medicine.

I get really depressed about the rise of 'integrative medicine'. Mixing practices like homeopathy and reiki that have no basis in reality at all with evidence-based medicine, as if this was a good thing.

Medicine does not yet have all the answers. That is because for some conditions there is no current cure. But that is no reason to allow quackery into the fold. Instead it should be an impetus for more research to understand the causes of the conditions and attempt to identify treatments that are effective.