Why psychologists should reject complementary and alternative medicine: A science-based perspective.

Abstract

Professional psychology is in apparent conflict about its relationship to “complementary” and “alternative” medicine (CAM)—some scholars envision a harmonious partnership, whereas others perceive irreconcilable differences. We propose that the field’s ambivalence stems at least partly from the fact that inquiring psychologists can readily point to peer-reviewed empirical evidence (e.g., published reports of randomized controlled trials) to either substantiate or refute claims for the efficacy of most CAM modalities. Thankfully, recent intellectual developments in the fields of medicine and scientific psychology—developments which we refer to collectively as the science-based perspective—have led to the identification of several principles that may be used to judge the relative validity of conflicting health intervention research findings, including the need to consider (a) the prior scientific plausibility of a treatment’s putative mechanism-of-action; and, commensurately, (b) the degree of equivalence between treatment and control groups—except for the single active element of the treatment believed to cause a specific change, all else between the 2 groups should be identical. To illustrate the potential of this approach to resolve psychology’s CAM controversy, we conducted a rereview of the research cited by Barnett and Shale (2012) regarding the efficacy of 11 types of CAM that psychologists might endorse. Fewer than 15% of the studies we reviewed (N 240) employed research designs capable of ruling out nonspecific effects, and those that did tended to produce negative results. From a science-based perspective, psychologists should reject CAM in principle and practice.