On the margins of the medical marketplace? An exploratory study of alternative practitioners’ perceptions

Abstract

Abstract The aim of this paper, drawing on data from an exploratory, qualitative investigation of the perceptions of alternative practitioners, is to examine the role and position of non‐orthodox medicine within the medical market. It specifically looks at how alternative practitioners firstly ‘experience’ their position and secondly their perceptions and images of how it should be. Clearly, one of the key issues is how the position of alternative practitioners relates to the medical profession and how they manage to estblish and maintain their position. This question was looked at particularly in terms of whether alternative practitioners adopt the strategies used by other occupational groups in the pursuit of autonomy.