This week's blog has been written by the founder of Yes to Life, Robin Daly. Here he discusses the lack of men in Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) - where are the men?
If there’s one thing
that’s clear from 13 years of developing Yes to Life, it’s that - in the main - men don’t do Complementary
and Alternative Medicine (CAM). At least not the ‘softer’ end of CAM. They may
do ‘outside the box’ treatments such as hyperthermia or intravenous vitamin C,
and turn up for a conference on the metabolic theory of cancer, but put on an
event investigating the mind-body relationship, as we just did, and one man
turns up.
Kelly Turner, in her
landmark book Radical Remission, identifies the key factors in the recovery of
a large number of people who were expected to die from cancer, as seen from
their own perspective. Nine factors or strategies were shared by all those
questioned, and of those, seven were in the realm of the mind, spirit and
feelings. The message from this seems to be ‘ignore this area at your peril’.
It’s the same state
of affairs when it comes to practitioners. I’ve been part of an audience of
well over 100 professionals at a lecture on CAM at which the only other male
was the speaker. Even within Yes to Life, although we do have one part-time
male volunteer (hero!), he is the first and the only in 13 years*. We have
never had a man on the Helpline.
I want to put it out
that I think this is a tragic situation, tragic in two ways:
Men as patients
A man with cancer is
every bit in need of support as a woman. Women seem to know they are going to
need help and they readily go out in search of it. And these days, the advent
of CAM means there really is something for everyone out there, from healing to
talking therapies to acupuncture. Support groups, retreats, workshops are all
largely populated by women. It would seem that some ridiculously outdated
abusive male stereotypes around ‘strength’ and ‘independence’ are still
prevalent and doing the same damage they have always done to men (and thereby
to women). Anger still seems to be the only safe ‘negative’ emotion to wear on
the surface, and there is no place for sharing anxiety, despair, confusion and
a host of other undesirable and ‘un-masculine’ inner experiences. Of course,
genuine strength and independence are about the willingness to be vulnerable.
But to do so when men all around are ruled by the law of the jungle is to risk
hurt, and so continuing to hide out in a macho shell, just as we have been
taught to from day one, often seems a far safer prospect.
None of this is
anyone’s fault. It is simply a response to abuse that has been passed down
through the generations, and whereas in the 21st century women are seeking to
redefine themselves, I think the same is a lot less true of men. As a result, I
would say that men with cancer are largely selling themselves short when it
comes to capitalising on all that Integrative Medicine - which includes both
conventional and CAM methods - has to offer.
Men as
practitioners
You only need look to
fields such as nursing or nursery teaching, to find parallels to the situation
in CAM. They are largely populated by women. And whereas this is by no means
meant to be any sort of complaint about women in these traditionally ‘caring’
roles, it’s just that on the rare occasion a man steps in, I find they bring a
different energy and they can be really wonderful carers. Until more men have
the courage to embrace the unfamiliar ‘feeling’ world of CAM, all patients,
both men and women will be deprived of male care, CAM will continue to be
sidelined in favour of technical medicine and we will all be the poorer for it.
Furthermore, too many
men will be deprived of the rich rewards of genuine connection and care in
their work. ‘Being a man’ still seems to commonly involve a moth-like
attraction to the devouring flames of hostile and abusive environments such as
traditional corporations or indeed healthcare. Once there, they are supposed to
‘prove’ themselves, or failing that, to at least try to survive. In this they
are part of an endless cycle, because of course abuse begets abuse, and in time
they come to take out their victimised rage on the next generation. Although
not explicit, it seems to me that the #MeToo campaign is calling for men to
step off this treadmill once and for all.
Both-and, not
either-or
It’s obvious to me
that we need both the technical brilliance of conventional medicine and the
care and compassion of CAM. Hence the stance of Yes to life in supporting
Integrative Medicine, the broadest possible, most inclusive approach.
Dr Robin Youngson,
inspirational global campaigner for compassion in healthcare, in what he
describes as ‘The most important paper I have ever written’[1], describes conventional medicine as
‘mindless’ medicine, in that it applies acute medicine methods to all
healthcare. Acute medicine can be reasonably effective with little
understanding of, or interest in the person being treated. Although the patient
may feel abused in many ways by the experience, they will probably be grateful
to be alive. This same approach when applied to complex long-term conditions,
creates the health crisis we are now in the midst of. Poor understanding of
patient needs and a proscriptive and impersonal approach that largely treats
symptoms is a recipe for disaster.
And in case you are
in any doubts about how bad things are, in 2014 the NHS reported[2] that pretty much half of Britain’s adult
population had taken a prescribed drug within the last week (so that excludes
over-the-counter medications) and almost a quarter had had at least three
prescribed drugs. And it gets worse with age - more than half in the 65-75 band
were on three or more medications and almost three-quarters in the over 75s. We
are a nation on drugs.
I would maintain that
it’s fair to characterise conventional medicine as broadly masculine and CAM as
largely feminine, when looked at from the perspective of relationship to
feelings and therefore to genuine person-centred care. Conventional healthcare
came up with clinical detachment as a super-strength, bullet-proof version of
the male shell. If you want a genuine listening ear, someone determined to get
the root of your difficulties and to care about the quality of your life, the
place to go is to a CAM practitioner.
The lack of care in
healthcare systems is legendary, and it is this that Robin Youngson has been
valiantly attempting to combat for years. Efforts over decades to bring in
‘patient-centred care’ and ‘patient choice’ have largely failed to make any
impression on the top-down, abusive, military-style constructs of healthcare.
Rather like the men, things desperately need to move on in the way healthcare
sees itself. It needs to step outside the fear-driven 20th century paradigm it
is stuck in, which continues to foster abuse, not only of those in its ‘care’,
but also, crucially, of healthcare workers.
A key element of Dr
Youngson’s renewed message is the need to embrace CAM if we are to begin to
combat the tidal wave of chronic illness that is engulfing us. While not
explicitly using the term Integrative Medicine, his mission to bring care and
compassion into healthcare seems to be refocusing around the understanding that
it already exists within CAM, and that therein lie the answers. We need both
the ‘masculine’ energy of conventional and the ‘feminine’ of complementary
medicine to give a full and rounded response to the desperate state of our
health, and if we want to create a healthcare system that truly cares for both
its patients and its workers.
More and more women
are stepping into senior roles within healthcare, but for the
desperately-needed change to take hold, we need more men to take up caring
roles and to champion the needs of vulnerable people for sensitivity, respect,
engagement, listening and a host of other ‘soft’ skills.
So, men, how about
joining us as a volunteer at Yes to Life?
*Actually, not 100%
true as we did have one in the very first year of the charity, in accounts!
