More and more people in Western countries - and in Israel - turn to
alternative health care as a complement or a substitute for conventional
health care. Some visit alternative practitioners even before they see a
family doctor. And for many people these methods work!! Alternative
health care in Israel, like in other Western countries, is a growing
phenomenon which changes over time. The book captures its dynamism
showing its development from the late 1980s to the present by describing
its place in the health care scene against the background of cultural,
political and social forces in Israel. The book is based on 15 years of
research which included over 100 in-depth interviews with alternative
practitioners, conventional practitioners, patients and policy makers
from different health care organization in Israel. There are many lively
quotations from these interviews which bring the narrative close to real
life. The book shows that in Israel there are many mainstream doctors,
nurses, midwives, physiotherapists and others who practice integrative
medicine which combines alternative and conventional approaches in order
to reinvigorate medicine's overall orientation to care and cure.
