Short abstract:

In this presentation we focus on how CAM practitioners in one modality, anthroposophic medicine (AM), depict the relationship to the medical establishment, the entity they are often demarcated from. We show how the AM professionals both ally with and demarcate from the medical establishment.

Long abstract:

The divide between experts and public is challenged in the field of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM). CAM practitioners are usually demarcated from the core of health professionalism in societies where the medical establishment has a strong foothold of the health system. However, CAM practitioners are considered as professionals in relation to their customers and the scope of their CAM practice.

The interest in health practices differing from the conventional medical recommendations is often explained in relation to the knowledge deficit model. In the model, people practicing controversial CAM health modalities are described by lack and ignorance of ‘legitimate’ knowledge.

In this presentation we focus on how CAM practitioners in one modality, anthroposophic medicine (AM), themselves depict the relationship to the medical establishment, the entity they are often demarcated from. By utilizing interviews with eleven AM professionals in Finland and documentary materials of AM in Finland and internationally, we show how the AM professionals both ally with and demarcate from the medical establishment.

We argue that the deficit model has been applied in the AM professional sphere in two dimensions: Firstly, AM professionals’ knowledge is not seen legitimate (intellectual dimension), and secondly their practices are not considered approvable in conventional healthcare (practical dimension). The AM professionals use the arguments of the deficit model and propose it towards the medical establishment, thus utilizing deficit model in reverse and therefore also expose the complexity behind dualistic simplifications where of CAM practitioners are understood to reject conventional medicine.