This book explores the challenging issues associated with complementary and alternative medicine in the context of the social, political and cultural influences that shape people's health.Divided clearly into three sections, this book:

• sets out the general context of social change, consumption and debate around the rise of public interest in CAM
• argues for and against different classifications of CAM
• critically assesses the importance of ethics and values to CAM practice and how these inform what practitioners do
• focuses on the question of what people want, the changing and contested nature of health, and the nature of personal and social factors associated with the use of CAM, leading to a focus on 'therapeutic relationships'
• examines the diversity of settings in which CAM takes place and the social, political and economic milieu in which CAM is provided and used.

Together with its accompanying text, Complementary and Alternative Medicine: Structures and Safeguards, it forms the core text for the Open University course K221 Perspectives on Complementary and Alternative Medicine.