Alternative and complementary approaches in psychiatry: Beliefs versus evidence

Abstract

While the legitimacy of medical treatments is more and more questioned, one sees a paradoxical increase in nonconventional approaches, notably so in psychiatry. Over time, approaches that were considered valuable by the scientific community were found to be inefficacious, while other approaches, labelled as alternative or complementary, were finally discovered to be useful in a few indications. From this observation, we propose to classify therapies as orthodox (scientifically validated) or heterodox (scientifically not validated). To illustrate these two categories, we discuss the place, the role, the interest, and also the potential risks of nonconventional approaches in the present practice of psychiatry.