Anthony Giddens
the reflexive self and the consumption of alternative medicine
pp. 439-454
in: Fran Collyer (ed), The Palgrave handbook of social theory in health, illness and medicine, Berlin, Springer, 2015Abstract
This chapter explores some of the work of Anthony Giddens with regard to its application to biomedicine and complementary medicine. It begins with a brief biographical outline of Giddens' career to date, following with an overview of his central themes and concepts. The theme of self-identity and the concepts of the reflexive self, trust, risk, expert systems and claims of truth, offer a way to interrogate the field of modern healthcare. It is proposed that the notion of the reflexive self, in particular, has the capacity to explain some of the ways in which contemporary individuals contemplate not only their health but also medical care in general. These ideas are applied to the notion of consumer choice and the view that there are a number of competing health service providers from whom consumers may choose the best fit therapy for their "lifestyle'. The corollary of this is a sense of relativism, where the historical authority of the medical and pharmaceutical industries is challenged by increasingly popular competing healthcare industries, which contest the scientific method and offer alternative epistemologies through which to contemplate health, and treat illness.
