Semantic complexities of the name

The term alternative medicine is the term adopted by the European Commission to qualify the alternative therapies that are the subject of a growing recognition in Europe since the 1990s.



It also uses the term alternative medicine, complementary medicine, natural medicine, alternative medicine, alternative medicine or holistic medicine sometimes (as some claim to treat the body as a whole).

* Speaking of "alternative medicine" seems to imply that there are two conceptions of medicine involving two health care systems operate independently of one another, with the same degree of efficiency and scientific nature: patients would therefore choose between two therapies they may consider as alternatives or as complementary and competing one another.

* The term "alternative medicine" seems to regard the aggressive practices of conventional medicine.

* The term "alternative medicine", it is envisaged these care practices as a proxy, therefore, likely to replace conventional and conventional therapeutic approach.

* The term "holistic" criticizes conventional medicine to focus on treating an organ or a specific function and not the patient as a whole. This is probably the case for medical specialties but not always for medicine in general.

* The term "complementary medicine" rather favors the idea of combining treatments that may be "therapeutic philosophies" different but able to cooperate in the interest of the patient.

By playing this way on the vocabulary, the proponents of these treatments were able to enter the culture the idea that they presented an "alternative" treatments whose effectiveness is proven by scientific research, where Sceptics prefer to speak rather of medicine based on science (an English science-based medicine) and pseudo-medicine and pseudo-science in order to avoid this rhetorical effect.

A semantic reversal has also been made since medicine is designated by advocates of unconventional medicine by the term allopathic medicine.