Abstract
The mind and spirit interventions of the social clinic are a type of alternative, fringe, complementary, integrative, folk, adjunctive, unconventional, unorthodox, nonmainstream, or irregular procedure that promises to treat mental, emotional, or physical ailments. What isolates past life therapy, MariEl (sic) healing, Reiki healing, light and sound therapy, gestalt psychotherapy, therapy for post-alien abduction syndrome, ho’oponopono, spiritualism, mindfulness, and many others from the mainstream is not their strangeness but rather their use of alternative science to validate their outcomes. Yet many marginal interventions are traveling the same track on which psychoanalysis, psychotherapy, and social work moved from the odd to the commonplace and all without compelling scientific evidence of effectiveness. The achievement of clinical acceptance is a social phenomenon more often than a rational one—validation through faith and use often in defiance of clinical evidence.
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Notes
- 1.
Think sung by Aretha Franklin in the 1980 Blues Brothers movie.
- 2.
This paraphrases a comment in Science News regarding a rigorous evaluation of aromatherapy by Kiecolt-Glaser et al. (2008) (https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/03/080303093553.htm, July 4, 2018 ).
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Epstein, W.M. (2019). Mind and Spirit on the Fringes of the Social Clinic. In: Psychotherapy and the Social Clinic in the United States. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-32750-7_10
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