Mental ills attract alternative therapies
By Bruce Bower
A substantial minority of people suffering from mental ailments seek out alternative therapies, usually without telling their physicians, according to a new analysis of data from a 1996 national survey of the public’s choices of medical therapies.
About 12 percent of people contacted had experienced a mental disorder. Of those, nearly 1 in 10 said they had consulted a practitioner of an unconventional therapy, say Benjamin G. Druss and Robert A. Rosenheck, both psychiatrists at Yale University School of Medicine.