Alternate Therapies?

[Frenchieboy]

So I'm all for a mix of modern medicine and alternative treatments. If you get the right consultant/doctor then they are happy to work with the patient to find the best approach to treatment. Of course, it also goes without saying that there are a lot of charlatans working in alternative medicine, and finding good ones is hard. Reiki used to be the pyramid selling scam of the alternative movement - you paid £5,000 to train as a 'master' (often in a couple of weekends or less) and then you could flog the 'reiki attunements' for several hundred pounds a time.

 

Caveat emptor!

 

Rhiannon x

 

It's always a problem that when something new is "discovered" some people will jump on the bandwagon and try to make huge amounts of money from it. I have spent over 3 years studying and qualifying as a Reiki Master, I do not charge for the treatments I give and I will only !Attune" someone if I believe that they want to work with Reiki for the right reasons (Not for profiteering) and in that case I do not charge a fee, I just ask that they do someone a good turn in exchange (I firmly believe in the sayings "What goes round comes round" and "You reap what you sow").

In reply to your statelemt about a "Mix of modern medicines and alternative therapies," this is getting more common nowadays - Many Hospices and in fact NHS Health Centres have a Reiki Practitioner on their books who usually works on a Volentary Basis!

I have to agree also that there are unfortunately far too many charlatans in the world who prey on other peoples missfortunes!

Edited September 4, 2009 by Frenchieboy

[Frenchieboy]

Is Reiki the one when you touch people in places???

 

I had an issue with my elbow a few years ago, i seen a friend who passed me the details of someone who did this kind of stuff but for the life of me i can remember what it was called.

 

He applied firm but gentle pressure around the area in different places for around an hour, cant say the problem was totally cured, but was a massive improvement, so yea, im a believer!!

 

My girlfriends friend, or relative performs something like this, apparantly she generates massive heat in her hands and runs them over the concerned area but without actually making contact.... i have no idea what its called but some people sware by it.

 

An average Reiki session would last for about an hour. The "Practitioner" may well use his hands to touch various parts of the pateint (who will remain fully clothed throughout the entire treatment). Alternatively the practitioner may hold his hands about an inch or so above the patient who might well feel a "gentle heat" being generated from the practitioners hands. When I am treating someone with Reiki the temperature in my hands will often rise 3 - 4 degrees (F) above the rest of my body temperature - This is caused by the healing Reiki energy flowing through my hands.

[alexr]

I spent a lot of time dealing with chronic diseases in the past as a hospital practitioner. Now I do the same as a GP. I feel certain aspects of alternative therapy do have a positive impact on the well being of the patient. I am not sure that you can describe this effect as entirely placebo based. I think that Doctors and to a lesser extent Nurses tend to ignore the human being and rather view their patients a sets of symptoms and signs. That has more to do with the way we are trained than it does with the type of people we are, but it remains a fact of life with in the profession. Also time pressures tend to limit the extent to which we get to know our patients, again just part of life. Alternative therapy practitioners have time to spend with their patients, and you can not deny the fact that, even if it is only for a short time, people feel better about themselves if some one takes time to, for want of a better word, pamper them ( that sounds condescending, and I do not wish to sound condescending but the range of therapies available make it difficult to come up with a single word to describe them all. Sorry). I am the same, a well done wet shave in a proper barbers and for the rest of the day I am on cloud nine. That is human nature. The worries arise when people ignore conventional wisdom and take an exclusively alternative approach to something. The stupidity of using Homeopathic vaccines to protect your dog from parvo is mind blowing, not to mention negligent. The same is true for back pain or indigestion and multiple other conditions. Yes if you want see an alternative therapist do so, but also consult your own GP. After all it’s always good to have that second shot just incase you miss with the first one.

[Frenchieboy]

The worries arise when people ignore conventional wisdom and take an exclusively alternative approach to something. The stupidity of using Homeopathic vaccines to protect your dog from parvo is mind blowing, not to mention negligent. The same is true for back pain or indigestion and multiple other conditions. Yes if you want see an alternative therapist do so, but also consult your own GP. After all it’s always good to have that second shot just incase you miss with the first one.

 

Totally agree with this statement! All Alternative Therapist should ALWAYS state that no matter how much better a "patient" feels after treatment(s) they should NEVER stop taking any prescription medications or treatments without consulting their GP first! In my opinion there is a very real place for SOME alternative therapies to be used in conjunction with the "Regular" or "Authodox" treatments available from a GP. And YES, I agree that an Alternative Therapist would (In most cases) have more time to spend with a "patient" than would an overworked GP in a NHS Medical Practice which may play an important part in the overall treatment of the patient!

[alexr]

Totally agree with this statement! All Alternative Therapist should ALWAYS state that no matter how much better a "patient" feels after treatment(s) they should NEVER stop taking any prescription medications or treatments without consulting their GP first! In my opinion there is a very real place for SOME alternative therapies to be used in conjunction with the "Regular" or "Authodox" treatments available from a GP. And YES, I agree that an Alternative Therapist would (In most cases) have more time to spend with a "patient" than would an overworked GP in a NHS Medical Practice which may play an important part in the overall treatment of the patient!

 

Sounds to me that you are a credit to your craft. The use of the word complementary therapy may be more use here than Alternative. Though whither my work complements yours, or vice versa would be hard to say. Health is as much about well being as it is fitness.

[Diceman]

"When I am treating someone with Reiki the temperature in my hands will often rise 3 - 4 degrees (F) above the rest of my body temperature - This is caused by the healing Reiki energy flowing through my hands."

 

Can you explain what you mean by "Reiki energy"? I had always understood energy to be a measurable ability to perform work, unable to be created or destroyed. It can be stored as perhaps potential or chemical energy and transformed into other forms so I perhaps what you call Reiki energy I would call heat, tranformed from the chemical energy of the food you eat, conducted around your body by the bloodstream and radiated from the hands. I can do that too, and I'm not a Reiki master, so perhaps you meant "Universal Life Force", which I believe is the other Reiki term. If so then could you explain exactly what this is? Can it be measured? Can it be stored? Where does it go when you are dead? Does it leak out and contribute to anthropogenic global warming?

 

You can probably tell that I am something of a skeptic at heart, and I really don't mean this as a personal attack, and I don't doubt your good intentions or motives but I need at least some empirical evidence of efficacy before I hand my cash or my health - or even my precious time - over to anyone. Hijacking scientific terms like "energy", inventing things like 'universal life forces' and attributing healing methods to ancient eastern mystics (they are always from the far east , for some reason, never Barnsley or Paignton) don't convince me as much as a double blind placebo controlled clinical trial I'm afraid. I think Alexr has summed up the psychology of alternative therapies very well (even if he is a GP in the pocket of Big Pharma ) and there are a number of posters who appear to be fans so they can clearly have some benefits, but give me the drugs and the surgery any time. Or even the osteopath, nothing like a careful bit of manipulation for a bad back

[Frenchieboy]

Firstly, in answer to the previous post by alexr - I concede that I may well have been better to use the words "Complementary Therapy" instead of "Alternative Therapy", especially as I am the first to state that you should not discontinue any medically prescribed treatment, therapy or medication after receiving any "Complementary Therapy", no matter haw much better you feel. However, having said that, while I agree with alexr this is a small play on words. Also Reiki is about treating the Whole Person on all three levels - The Physical, The Emotional and The Spiritual which, as I read it is in line with his beliefs that health is about "well being" rather than just "fitness".

 

"When I am treating someone with Reiki the temperature in my hands will often rise 3 - 4 degrees (F) above the rest of my body temperature - This is caused by the healing Reiki energy flowing through my hands."

 

Can you explain what you mean by "Reiki energy"? I had always understood energy to be a measurable ability to perform work, unable to be created or destroyed. It can be stored as perhaps potential or chemical energy and transformed into other forms so I perhaps what you call Reiki energy I would call heat, tranformed from the chemical energy of the food you eat, conducted around your body by the bloodstream and radiated from the hands. I can do that too, and I'm not a Reiki master, so perhaps you meant "Universal Life Force", which I believe is the other Reiki term. If so then could you explain exactly what this is? Can it be measured? Can it be stored? Where does it go when you are dead? Does it leak out and contribute to anthropogenic global warming?

 

You can probably tell that I am something of a skeptic at heart, and I really don't mean this as a personal attack, and I don't doubt your good intentions or motives but I need at least some empirical evidence of efficacy before I hand my cash or my health - or even my precious time - over to anyone. Hijacking scientific terms like "energy", inventing things like 'universal life forces' and attributing healing methods to ancient eastern mystics (they are always from the far east , for some reason, never Barnsley or Paignton) don't convince me as much as a double blind placebo controlled clinical trial I'm afraid. I think Alexr has summed up the psychology of alternative therapies very well (even if he is a GP in the pocket of Big Pharma ) and there are a number of posters who appear to be fans so they can clearly have some benefits, but give me the drugs and the surgery any time. Or even the osteopath, nothing like a careful bit of manipulation for a bad back

 

Some chose to call the "healing energy" by the name of "Universal Life Force" some (Like me) prefere to simplify things by using the words "Healing Energy", whatever you care to call it makes no difference, it still works as a great many people (Including members of this forum) will testify! With regards to you asking "Can it be measured, etc:" this one is a dufficult one to answer - the only way that I can think of to answer this to you is by saying that I believe that emotions (Love, Hate, Jelousy, etc.) are a form of energy but can you measure them, can you define them? I suspect not but you have to admit that you know that they are there! You question why many of these "Alternative" or "Complimentary" Therapies have their origins in the Far East - Agian, I can only offer you my own personal belief that many other areas (No offence to Barnsley or Paignton) of the world are filled with so much scepticism whereas the people in the "Far East" (Your choice of descriptive words, not mine) are much more open minded about the existance of the "spiritual form as well as the human form" (This is a simplified explanation, I will not get invloved in any word games over this explanation).

With regards to you wanting some "empirical evidence of efficacy before I hand over my cash" the only thing that I can suggest is that you find someone that is a Reiki Practitioner and explain that you are a sceptic who would rather go to a GP when you have a "back problem" and ask the doctor to prescribe some pain killers rather than finding and curing the "root problem" of your back pain - You might well find that you are offered a free "taster session" and get all the proof that you require, after all, in that type of case you would have nothing to lose and everything to gain! When all is said and done which would you rather have, a tablet that just temporarily masks the problem or something that gets to the root of the problem and deals with it. As it is I do not believe that there is anywhere on this thread that I or anyone else has asked you to hand over your cash or your health!

Finally please note (This is a generalisation and not pointed at anyone in particular) - At the beginning of this thread I stated that this was not an exercise on my part to try to "drum up business" and that I do not charge for any treatment that I give. Please not that I have not asked anyones your money nor have I asked anyone throughout this entire thread to allow me to offer them treatment, nor will I. I started this thread purely out of interest to see how many people believed in or used "Alternative Therapies" (Or possible a better description "Complimentary Therapies) not to get drawn into "Word Games" from sceptics who seem to want to disprove anything that they do not understand!

[Diceman]

"many other areas (No offence to Barnsley or Paignton) of the world are filled with so much scepticism whereas the people in the "Far East" (Your choice of descriptive words, not mine) are much more open minded about the existance of the "spiritual form as well as the human form"

 

Sceptics a extremely open minded. They question everything. I would suggest that accepting without question the word of a man who had the whole theory of Reiki come to him in a dream whilst he was fasting on the top of a mountain, even when those theories cannot be explained or proven, is the more close-minded approach.

 

"With regards to you asking "Can it be measured, etc:" this one is a dufficult one to answer - the only way that I can think of to answer this to you is by saying that I believe that emotions (Love, Hate, Jelousy, etc.) are a form of energy but can you measure them, can you define them? I suspect not but you have to admit that you know that they are there! "

 

That is my point - you can't measure them, therefore they are not "energy" in any form. OK, it is a small point and perhaps a pedantic one, but the word "energy" is bandied about in many pseudosciences and given impossible properties. It would be more honest to give it another name, like Universal Life Force, which is meaningless, than to try & pass it off as something real, scientific and well understood. I find it interesting though that you align Reiki energy to the emotions - perhaps this is because the psychology of the treatment is more important than the physical actions?

 

"With regards to you wanting some "empirical evidence of efficacy before I hand over my cash" the only thing that I can suggest is that you find someone that is a Reiki Practitioner and explain that you are a sceptic who would rather go to a GP when you have a "back problem" and ask the doctor to prescribe some pain killers rather than finding and curing the "root problem" of your back pain"

 

I know exactly what the root problem of my back pain is - it is a common issue relating to the misalignment of a spinal disc. When I sit in the wrong position for too long or overdo the log splitting it plays up. I take clinically proven ibuprofen to reduce the inflammation, clinically proven co-codamol to ease the pain and visit the osteopath for some manipulation and a nice massage. It always works. The body is a machine. I wouldn't sacrifice a goat on the bonnet of my land rover and expect that to fix an engine misfire, and I doubt you would either, but I bet there are plenty of cultures in the world that would give it a go. In the same way, I wouldn't bother wasting my time on an unscientific therapy that did nothing to address the mechanical issues of my back pain.

 

"not to get drawn into "Word Games" from sceptics who seem to want to disprove anything that they do not understand!"

 

In science, one generally proves something by failing to disprove it, thats how it works. I think, though, that I do understand Reiki, and Alexr hit it right on the head.

 

Like the 'religion' discussion I got drawn into a few months ago on this site, I guess this debate is unwinnable on either side because essentially it is the same spirituality vs. science argument, so in the interests of forum harmony I'll probably leave it there. Best wishes to you Frenchie, and if you can give some comfort to people then good on you. Its just not for me.