Vitalism - Complementary and Alternative Medicine

Complementary and Alternative Medicine

While contemporary conventional medicine has distanced itself from the less reductionistic and more vitalistic approach of traditional medicine, some areas of complementary medicine continue to espouse various guises of vitalistic concepts and worldview. The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) classifies CAM therapies into five categories or domains:

• alternative medical systems, or complete systems of therapy and practice;
• mind-body interventions, or techniques designed to facilitate the mind's effect on bodily functions and symptoms;
• biologically based systems, including herbalism;
• manipulative and body-based methods, such as chiropractic and massage therapy; and
• energy therapy.

The therapies that continue to be most intimately associated with vitalism are bioenergetic medicines, in the category of energy therapies. This field may be further divided into bioelectromagnetic medicines (BEM) and biofield therapies (BT). Compared with bioenergetic medicines, biofield therapies have a stronger identity with vitalism. Examples of biofield therapies include therapeutic touch, Reiki, external qi, chakra healing and SHEN therapy. Biofield therapies are medical treatments in which the "subtle energy" field of a patient is manipulated by a biofield practitioner. The subtle energy is held to exist beyond the electromagnetic (EM) energy that is produced by the heart and brain. Beverly Rubik describes the biofield as a "complex, dynamic, extremely weak EM field within and around the human body...."

Acupuncture and chiropractic emphasize a holistic approach to the cause and treatment of disease (see main articles on these subjects). However, it should be noted that today many chiropractors no longer adhere to the concept of vitalism to explain the mechanisms at play, and are more mechanistic in their approach. More traditional or "straight" practitioners, however, adhere to a concept of "innate". For example, in a paper named "The Meanings of Innate", Joseph C. Keating, Jr. says that "Innate Intelligence" in chiropractic can be used to represent four concepts: a synonym for homeostasis, a label for a doctor's ignorance, a vitalistic explanation of health and disease, and a metaphysical premise for treatment.

The founder of homeopathy, Samuel Hahnemann, promoted an immaterial, vitalistic view of disease: "...they are solely spirit-like (dynamic) derangements of the spirit-like power (the vital principle) that animates the human body." As practised by some homeopaths today, homeopathy simply rests on the premise of treating sick persons with extremely diluted agents that – in undiluted doses – are deemed to produce similar symptoms in a healthy individual. Nevertheless, it remains equally true that the view of disease as a dynamic disturbance of the immaterial and dynamic vital force is taught in many homeopathic colleges and constitutes a fundamental principle for many contemporary practising homeopaths.