Bringing the heart back into nursing

This paper examines the growth in interest in complementary therapies in recent years; specifically in relation to nursing. A number of reasons appear to underpin the expansion into nursing practice--including their effects in the therapeutic potential of nursing and the desire by nurses to 'humanise' health care. The rise of complementary therapies, however, is seen as more than a desire to seek alternative treatments, or to seek help where orthodox medicine's role is disputed or as a reaction to our touch deprived 'high-tech' culture. Indeed it is argued, that seeing the complementary therapies as just another 'treatment' is to adopt a reductionist view as inappropriate and as limiting as orthodox methods. Nor is growth in interest in the complementary therapies an end in itself; rather it is a product of a wider, greater shift of circumstances that is taking place as a new millenium approaches.