Alternative Therapies for Mentally Ill
...ity disorder, learning difficulties, compulsions, obsessions, eating disorders, anger, and physical pain” (Pignotti 1193). Many psychotherapists believe that this is an affective form of alternative medicine because it can help cure a wide variety of problems in the mental illness field. Of course with new technology and new experimental medicines, there are always people that disagree with these issues. In particularly in this field of medicine. Many people believe that alternative medicine is a positive form of medicine for the mentally ill, yet there are several that believe that these alternative treatments are harming the patients more than they are helping them. There are also several people that think that patients should be allowed to pick what kind of treatment they feel works the best for them. All in all, this has become an issue that has been argued about for over ten years. Many people argue that alternative therapies for the mentally ill is not a good idea for a few reasons. These reasons are as follows: people believe that they are paying for the patients to have these contemporary treatments performed, that several patients have become worse after having one of these treatments, there has been insufficient experiments conducted for these therapies, and the fact that the patient does not have to have a physician’s approval to have one of these therapies performed on them. The people with the opposing view on alternative therapies for the mentally ill believe that they are paying for the treatments one way or the other. What people do not realize is that the people who receive these treatments pay massive amounts of money for one session, so there is no money being taken from anyone. Many people will argue that alternative medicine is not tested on the right types of cases. They believe that there are “uncontrolled case series” (Lohr 1229) that do not prove that these types of treatments are effective. In fact, there have been times that people will argue that these methods are ineffective because they are performed in large health maintenance facilities where the patients do not have enough time with the psychotherapist. Another reason that people disagree with alternative therapies for the mentally ill is because there have been certain verbal reports that measure the severity of the symptoms, and in some rare cases, the symptoms have become worse after having one of these contemporary treatments done (Lohr 1229). The number of subjects that this has happened to is minimal compared to the number of subjects that contemporary medicine has helped cure. One other opposing view on alternative therapies is that they are not tested very well. There have been issues where there have been misinterpretations of the results and so the patient is sent out and is not all the way healed (Kline 1187). Many psychologists or psychiatrists believe that this is not an effective way to cure mentally ill patients because there have not been enough experiments ran to prove that it is effective for every person that has it done. They also believe that there is more stress added to the patient because they are being forced to believe that these treatments are helping them in every way possible. The last controversy over this topic is the fact that patients do not have to have a physicians approval to seek out any alternative therapy (Bower 37). Since these treatments have become more popular throughout the past years, more and more patients are taking advantage of them. Some of society views this as a major problem because many people do not believe that a patient in a mental state is not stable enough to pick what kind of therapy they would like to have (Bower 38). This has caused several issues within the field itself because many physicians agree with the society that mental patients should be treated by a professional and not be able to choose who they believe is the best for their situation. On the other hand, several people agree that alternative therapies for the mentally ill are really good ideas for many different reasons. Some of the reasons that people believe that contemporary therapies are a good idea is because patients should be allowed to pick what kind of treatments they want, thought-field therapy has been proven to work, most of the therapies can be taught to the patient so that they can perform it on themselves, and surveys have shown that most people are willing to help with the experimenting of these therapies. Much of society believes that by listening to what the mentally ill patient wants is the key to helping them find a treatment for their ailment (Coulehan 1467). Over fifty percent of the asked believed that alternative therapies that are picked by the patients themselves are an effective way to let the patient express how they are really feeling (Coulehan 1465). Psychotherapists believe that by listening to a patient’s views of their mental illness, then they are already a step ahead of curing their illness. Some will even go as far to say that listening to a person about what alternative therapy they want to try is the best way to help the person get over their phobia or anxiety or any other mental illness that they are experiencing. Although this is not agreed on by everyone, it is supported by many. Another pro to this problem is the fact that thought-field therapy has actually been proven to work in many cases, particularly in one case of a woman named Mary. Mary suffered from a severe case of a phobia of water that caused her a great amount of discomfort and restricted her life. She went through several months of traditional cognitive and desensitization treatments, but nothing seemed to work because every time that she came near water, Mary would get sick to her stomach. Callahan, the man that invented thought-field therapy, felt inspired to tap the acupressure points under her eyes that are associated with the stomach meridian. Mary felt miraculously better in an instant and even said, “ ‘It’s gone…I don’t think I’m afraid of the water anymore’” (Swenson 5). This case has since become known as a classical case that proves that thought-field therapy is a sufficient way to help cure patients that have mental illnesses. Much of society would agree that this is an effective way to help cure mentally ill patients because it gives them instant relief from their ailment and they are sent home in the same day because it does not require them to have any medication at all. This whole form of therapy is based upon the use of acupressure points and the ability to make the patient focus on another object so that they do not think of what is wrong with them. One other positive effect that makes society agree with alternative therapies for the mentally ill is the fact that the patients can learn how to do these techniques and perform them on themselves. Once one is taught the basics of something, like yoga, they are able to perform the exercises in the privacy of their own home as often as they need to and that way they are not charged for something that they are able to do (Weintraub 78). Society agrees with this aspect of alternative treatments because the people that have serious mental illnesses do not have to be brought out in public to be embarrassed because of what they have done or what they are doing. This seems to be an effective way to treat patients that have a mental ailment because they are able to focus themselves on what seems to be the problem at hand and not have to worry about what physician believes to be wrong with them. They are able to overcome many issues that they face because they are able to zoom into what the exact problem is and they do not have to worry about what anybod...