Personal legitimation in contemporary alternative healing practitioners

The social cultural climate of the 1970\u27s and 1980\u27s has allowed for the emergent popularity of many contemporary alternative approaches to healing in the United States. Many alternative practitioners develop personal approaches to healing that may not reflect any institutionally legitimized or ideological system of health. They rely on an experience of knowing that has been generated from within to sanction their abilities. This experience the author calls personal legitimation. The way practitioners authenticate and operationalize their knowing to themselves and apply it in their practice is the legitimation process. This study examines how contemporary alternative healing practitioners utilize the process of legitimation, or how knowing is done . The social and historical context for the development of the epistemological basis for holistic, new age healing practices is explored. Distinctions in the legitimation process between conventional biomedical practitioners and contemporary alternative healing practitioners are drawn. The study considers a select number of cases that demonstrate ways in which legitimation is practiced by alternative healing practitioners. Examples are drawn from a review of the literature and field work cases that best demonstrate the variety of personal legitimation strategies utilized. Two extended case studies of practitioners, Thomas J. Marsteller, homeopath, and Marion Brodsky, Body Synergist are included. Case material was derived by using an heuristic research methodology, recorded interviews, and participant observation. Results of this study demonstrate that contemporary alternative healing practitioners function as educators, assisting clients to reframe their experience of dis-ease into larger contexts of meaning. Practitioners used alternative legitimation strategies, including a highly developed ability on the part of practitioners to employ a variety of intuitive strategies. Personal legitimation through the development of self trust was the major component that directed these practitioners in their work. Practitioners studied acknowledged that a spiritual source ultimately created and directed the outcomes of their interventions with clients