Hi Rajiv,
I don't have any problem with "alternative medicines" in general. Perhaps many have "faith-based" cures, and if and when these are effective, who am I to object? I do object to pseudo-scientific claims (i.e., should some faith based approach fallaciously claim to work by science rather than faith).
I agree with many Jungian analysts that what works therapeutically is worth utilizing in psychotherapy. But I do have an objection to some of the approaches Jungians (and psychoanalysts and other psychotherapists) take that appear to have healing results but only from specific (and often faith-based) perspectives. One example I've written about previously is the confusion in many psychotherapies between indoctrination and healing or between indoctrination and initiation/individuation.
Indoctrination as therapy would be more like what we see in the stereotypical 12 step program. There is a specif dialect and perhaps some rules and signature ideas (more like mantras), but primarily, "healing" is about finding an identity within a supportive group. Far beyond a mere placebo effect (more on that later), indoctrination into a tribe can have substantial mental and physical health benefits for the individual who embraces that indoctrination. This should be studied far more scientifically and thoroughly than it has been.
I don't mean to criticize this tribal indoctrination as healing either. My suspicion is that it is something everyone needs, this ability to belong and be "seen" and participate within a group. I don't criticize psychotherapies that indoctrinate more heavily or are composed of more overtly tribal bodies because "indoctrination is wrong or bad". It isn't. My critique is more subtle. I think that these psychotherapies become unnecessarily and dangerously unscientific when they use a form of "indoctrination therapy" but claim that some kind of scientific, objective medicine or method of treatment is being used.
Jungianism and psychoanalysis are substantially tribal micro-cultures that rely very heavily on indoctrination therapies. But they both believe that their methods of treatment are more or less scientifically sound and essentially universal. Like, say, antibiotics . . . which have a scientifically proven effect. Jungians and especially psychoanalysts are true believers in their methods and theories, but these remain to be proven. Statistically, although hard to measure accurately, there does seem to be some effectiveness to their treatments, but this effectiveness is not itself analyzed. How much of it ("healing" or functional identity construction) might come as a benefit of indoctrination is not factored. That is, how much of the method of treatment is effective because it universally "works" and how much is healing merely a matter of finding a group or mindset in which the patient's identity is allowed to be more "whole" and visible (so long as the patient conforms to the conventions of tribal indoctrination, i.e., "believes" in the validity of the psychotherapeutic methodology as "true"?
Although psychoanalysis seems to be considerably more "indoctrinating" and overtly tribal than Jungianism, Jungianism runs into the problem of promoting as a facet of its methodology "individuation" . . . which cannot be the same thing as indoctrination. individuation is a differentiation from group affiliations, not a mystical participation in them and in the tribe's identity construction. So my concern is that there is a degree of bad faith in this method and in Jungian ideology. Individuation is in many cases a sham.
With psychoanalysis, there is perhaps a different kind of sham. Something more along the lines of claimed scientific credibility. I don't know what expression of bad faith is worse. My concern (as a Jungian, however "outside") is that maintaining this expression of bad faith is harmful to the Jungian tribe and its capacity to think and treat patients with any scientific validity. Also, If Jungian analysts are indoctrinating some of their patients, then I would like to see what they are being indoctrinated into as viable, healthy, functional, sustainable, adaptable, and survivable. That is, if we are organizing as a tribe, then the "tribal soul" needs to be tended to.
I also have no objection to shamanism (although I remain suspicious of and unconvinced by "urban shamanism"). Real shamanism only superficially treats individuals. More accurately, I think it treats the "tribal soul". Individuals who suffer a "soul sickness" are like organs in a body that become diseased. They need to be healed so that they do not contribute to the destruction of the entire body (i.e., the tribe). The shaman treats the individual within the context of the tribe's mythos, values, identity constructions, and stories of selfhood.
My suspicion of urban shamans is largely a matter of recognizing that they do not really treat the "tribal soul". They operate (sometimes knowingly and cynically) on the individual soul as if soul treatment of this sort could restore the health of the individual in a sick world/community. In other words, the problem with this kind of urban and "plastic" shamanism is that it sees the soul as "ego-like". It envisions suffering and disease as personal matters and has a dangerously ignorant or irresponsible vision of the relationship between individual and tribe.
I don't, for instance, believe that a modern, urban person can go seek out a native, tribal healer, undergo a tribal healing ritual, and return to modern urban life "completely cured". Perhaps a placebo effect can dispel a symptom or two if the patient really believes in the ritual on some level, but the disease is still there. A shaman can only heal individuals within his or her tribe.
Regarding the placebo effect. I think it itself is part urban legend. The actual measured effect of placebos where the number of tests over a longer duration of time is quite extensive is not at all miraculous. And I believe that the long term effectiveness of placebos is much lower than the short term. I don't have references for this right now, but I do recall reading about this in various places in the past. I will try to find some data or studies to link to or cite when I get a bit of time.
I don't know much about homeopathy, but I am not sure that your health improvements, if they resulted from this treatment, were actually based in placebo effects. Diet, lifestyle/exercise, and limiting exposure to various forms of toxicity could certainly (and perhaps scientifically) have immense benefits to health. My mother, before she died of cancer, tried a strict macrobiotic diet. I suspect that most of the foods she was prescribed were prescribed for hokey reasons, and they may not have had any effect on the growth rate of her cancer. But the diet totally "cured" her diabetes. Did the diet have to be specifically "macrobiotic" to achieve this? I seriously doubt it. But eating healthy foods, no meat, and strictly controlling portions . . . a "lifestyle" change . . . did have a profound positive effect on her health.
Equally with psychotherapies, where strategies can be developed and employed for reducing anxiety, increasing coping abilities, and finding more access to fulfillment in relational or identity roles, I think that resultant health benefits would be entirely "real" and even within the gaze and grasp of science.
Although I do admire aspects of rationalism and consider myself a kind of atheist and naturalist, I am not the kind of materialist ideologue that believes all non-rational thoughts are foolish and wrong (a la Richard Dawkins). Science is not a religion to me, merely an excellent tool. And not when it is invoked by name alone, but when its methods are practiced with real integrity. Where I might grumble and say slightly flippant things like "Do we really need a psychotherapy more like Scientology or some other kind of New Age guru-for-hire pseudo-spiritualism" (which is the accurate quote you seem to be appropriating), my meaning is not "arch-rationalist". Scientology and alternative and natural medicines are not in the same league. And my gripe in the above had more to do with exploitation of people for selfish gains and wasn't a sweeping condemnation of the non-rational or not-yet-scientifically-understood.
I'm not quite sure how to interpret your first paragraph about modern medicine communicating in the body's own native language, and what you say about therapy being "all about trust" is a bit vague and overly general. I don't see exactly how you are connecting that up with the rest of the statements in your post.
Best,
Matt
