Complementary and Alternative Medicine & Psychiatry _vol 19#1

Rating:
Summary: Complementary and Alternative Medicine
Review: This book is mostly written for psychiatrists and other therapists. The language is geared for professionals but it is appropriate for anyone who is interested in the topic. All of the authors are doctors in regular medical practice. The book is edited by Muskin who writes an introductory chapter about the history of alternative medicine. He uses the term CAM for Complementary and Alternative Medicine. The review is pretty surprising, particularly how he gets from CAM to s'mores. The chapters cover a broad range of topics: Richard Brown writes about herbs and nutrients. He published another book about SAMe. This is a brief but pretty comprehensive chapter about many different substances. I don't think you could use it as a cookbook, but it covers a lot of ground. Ina Becker has a chapter on yoga, including the history of yoga. It is useful if you are considering trying yoga for a psychological problem. Joesph Loizzo's chapter on mediation has a lot in it about theory and various research. It is not very practical, but it is very scientific. The acupuncture chapter is a review of Chinese medicine. Anyone who is thinking of acupuncture might want to read it before starting treatment. The last chapter is by Catherine Crone and is about problems that can result when people use alternative medicine along with or instead of regular medical treatment. Anybody who is thinking of doing that should read the chapter. I liked the book, but it is not one you read in one sitting. It is a reference book and one that has so much information is will be useful for a long time.