Description:
Integrative medicine' has become a ubiquitous term in certain sectors of the healthcare industry. Whereas the active cooperation of various systems of medicine is an important goal, a shoddy attempt at integration will limit us to a "Disneyworld" version of these vast and varied medical approaches. That is, we may find ourselves using only some of the form and some of the substance of complex traditional systems of natural medicine squeezed into easily marketable and salable forms. Before a system of truly complementary medicine can exist the essence of traditional natural medical practices needs to be properly understood by biomedical health professionals and more fully incorporated into modern sensibilities. To begin establishing a complementary approach to medicine, we must create a common language through which traditional doctors and biomedical physicians can communicate clearly about their disciplines. The following article attempts to contribute to the language of discourse with the long-term objective of creating such an analysis. As a starting point in building this language, the condition diagnosed by Western medicine as irritable bowel syndrome provides an example of a useful model for comparative analysis.
