Receiving Money for Medicine: Some Tensions and Resolutions for Community Based Private Complementary Therapists

This chapter considers the potential tensions and dilemmas which therapists face and the resolutions which they come to in being carers, but in market terms, also profit makers. It focuses on research on 426 community-based private complementary therapists in the UK and highlights some potential tensions and resolutions for complementary therapists as both carers and business owners. Charging direct, out-of-pocket payments for healthcare and medicines is not an uncommon practice. Indeed, wherever state finance, private insurance and voluntary sector coverage is incomplete or absent, direct payment remains a common form of financial cost recovery. Money is an economic necessity in most societies and cultures, except those which use the traditional and ancient exchange system of barter. Therapists were asked what they do or would do if a client insisted on continuing with an ineffective treatment. Therapists were then given a number of scenarios which could either be hypothetical or real, depending on the individual and their experiences in practice.