La guerre des médecines. Quand le croire se retrouve au cœur d’une crise institutionnelle

Abstract

BackgroundThis article analyses the current confrontation between pro- and anti-Non-Conventional Care Practices (NCCP), taking the particular case of magnetism as an example. GoalsIts challenge is to understand why, while evidence-based medicine has been institutionalized in France since the 1970s, there is still no consensus among health professionals on the place of belief in care. MethodologyTo do this, the author adopts a pragmatic sociological approach. That is to say, based on ethnographic work with magnetizers and through semi-directive interviews with doctors, she describes the position of these different actors in a symmetrical way. ResultThis leads her to distinguish several types of “believing” in care: a “believing-competence” (valued by magnetizers), a “believing-accusation” (used by anti-NCCP to criticize them), a “limiting belief” (denounced by pro-NCPP), and an “efficient belief,” support of the placebo effect (valued by pro-NCCP). ConclusionUsing history, the author of this article finally explains the “war of the medicines” by the rise of two contradictory professional ethics — those of proof and well-being. This leads her to embrace a critical perspective: in order to hold these ethics together, she suggests introducing a qualitative method into the evaluation of NCCP. That is, to evaluate these practices first by a randomized controlled trial — to verify their interest and safety — and then by a method that respects the patients’ experience, and therefore pays attention to particular cases of healing or well-being.