| Summary: | This ethnographic study of consumers of complementary therapies in an area of South Wales examines the ways in which people account for their decisions to seek help from complementary therapists, with particular reference to lay networks of health care. Using the data gathered from interviews with consumers of complementary therapies during the period between 1994 and 1995, the study explores the meanings of treatments for the users of therapies and the metaphors with which they describe their beliefs and actions, with particular reference to the meanings attached to the body in consumers' accounts. Moreover, in examining the experiences of users of complementary therapies, it seeks to understand the growth in popularity of such therapies in Britain in recent years and to ascertain how such cultural change occurs. The study examines the differences between conventional and complementary medicine with particular reference to the nature of the practitioner/patient relationship. It also explores the way in which changes in conventional medical wisdom in recent years have shaped and informed consumers' perceptions. Beliefs about the nature of science and scientific medicine are discussed in this context. Utilising current perspectives in the anthropology of medicine and the sociology of health care, it examines the growth of medical pluralism in Britain. It is suggested that complementary medical practices currently occupy an interstitial area between lay and professional spheres of health seeking behaviour and that this in part accounts for their appeal to consumers.
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