One step too far ...

The efforts of the powers that be to regulate complementary health services, combined with the control applied by the governing bodies within each profession go a long way to ensure that treatment given within these limiting guidelines will not be wholly effective.  

For instance, if you go to see an osteopath who is governed by a strict code of conduct which dictates that in patient assessment, the practitioner does not consider the patients' emotions as bearing relation to the root of the problem, and treatment is based upon symptoms presenting alone, instead of guiding the patient to look further back for the emotional tensions which could well have pre-empted the presenting symptoms, then what's to say the treatment will work or hold?  (i.e. if the root cause if not addressed directly, the situation could well recur).  There may well be, and frequently is, an improvement, but in the longer term is the patient really encouraged to take responsibility for him/herself and to dig deeper within for the answer?  I'm afraid not - in fact anything deemed to be outside treatment protocol is usually referred to the GP, thus sowing a seed in the mind of the patient of something more serious ... or 'nasty', and we all know the power of negative thoughts in even the most unsuspecting individual. 


So, professions such as osteopaths or chiropractors, in their efforts to be scientific and ethical, take a rather separatist stance with treatment protocol, yet the likes of Candace Pert (Molecules of Emotion) and Bruce Lipton (Biology of Belief) have written much about how our thoughts can and do have a direct impact upon our physical form.  For instance, much research into longevity has shown that people in relationships (of any sort) have been shown to live longer, which would suggest that emotions do have a direct effect upon health and longevity.  I do wonder how much repeat business would actually be necessary if the emotional aspect of a condition was tackled at the outset.  I would guess that the influence of the 'nanny' state means that even in a complementary health profession, patients are still actively discouraged to trust their own instinct about anything - after all, it could just be toooo risky!


So yes, I am rather frustrated by what I see around me and the task of building up Joe Public's innate intuition seems ever more daunting.  It would seem that the 'powers that be' will continue to send their tendrils of negativity into the heart of any profession they can to suppress what really ought to come naturally to each of us.