Maintaining the use of alternative medicine: pathologizing thoughts and reconstructing an authentic identity

Le maintien de l’usage de médecines alternatives: pathologisation des pensées et reconstruction d’une identité authentique

Paul Pasquier (), Anthony Galluzzo () and Laure Ambroise ()
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Paul Pasquier: COACTIS - COnception de l'ACTIon en Situation - UL2 - Université Lumière - Lyon 2 - UJM - Université Jean Monnet - Saint-Étienne, IAE ST-E - Institut d'Administration des Entreprises de Saint Etienne - UJM - Université Jean Monnet - Saint-Étienne
Anthony Galluzzo: IAE ST-E - Institut d'Administration des Entreprises de Saint Etienne - UJM - Université Jean Monnet - Saint-Étienne, COACTIS - COnception de l'ACTIon en Situation - UL2 - Université Lumière - Lyon 2 - UJM - Université Jean Monnet - Saint-Étienne
Laure Ambroise: COACTIS - COnception de l'ACTIon en Situation - UL2 - Université Lumière - Lyon 2 - UJM - Université Jean Monnet - Saint-Étienne, IAE ST-E - Institut d'Administration des Entreprises de Saint Etienne - UJM - Université Jean Monnet - Saint-Étienne

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Abstract: While alternative medicines are used to fill the gaps in conventional medicine in terms of care, their medical inefficiency limits their long-term use. In this article, we show that consumers maintain their consumption of alternative drugs by learning a therapeutic system that explain the illnesses by the thoughts. By pathologizing their mental states, interpreted as the product of an imposed social identity, consumers of alternative medicine engage in a long-term therapeutic process of constructing a new identity deemed authentic or natural, favorable to healing. The absence of improvement in the state of health induced by this therapeutic process is thus interpreted not as the absence of effectiveness of the therapy, but as a personal failure of the patient to discover his true identity, which can lead to an aimless quest for identity generating financial, health and social risks.

Keywords: ethnography; Alternative medicine; health; consumer communities; consumer identity; ethnographie; médecines non conventionnelles; santé; communautés de consommation; identité de consommation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022-11-17
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Published in 21èmes Journées Normandes de Recherche sur la Consommation, Nov 2022, Le havre, France

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-04738952

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