Return to search

Identities of Alternative Medicine Practitioners

The purpose of this research was to collect and analyze information from massage therapists on how they construct their identities. It is meant to be a starting point in giving voice to a group of alternative health practitioners who have been marginalized and misunderstood. It also helps us to understand what it means (to them) to be massage therapists and practitioners of "alternative medicine." This study was conducted through semi-structured interviews with five licensed massage therapists in two metropolitan areas in Florida. Massage therapists work at the micro level to boost the image of themselves and their form of "alternative" medicine. They do this by pulling professionalizing tactics from general business practices and from biomedicine. They also pull from "alternative" belief systems, balancing the two in a bid to construct their practice as legitimate and "alternative" professional health care.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:USF/oai:scholarcommons.usf.edu:etd-2955
Date07 April 2009
CreatorsEstevez, Mychel
PublisherScholar Commons
Source SetsUniversity of South Flordia
Detected LanguageEnglish
Typetext
Formatapplication/pdf
SourceGraduate Theses and Dissertations
Rightsdefault

Page generated in 0.0018 seconds