MAKING THE CHOICE TO USE HERBS: PATHWAYS TO THE PRACTICE OF HERBALISM

Abstract

This study examines how herbal medicine users chose to begin using herbal medicine: How do people learn about, become interested in, and begin using herbal medicine? How do social, cultural, personal, and situational factors uniquely combine in temporally experienced sequences and in varying degrees of influence upon users’ choice to begin using herbal medicine? I thematically analyzed data from 28 intensive face-to-face interviews with current medicinal plant users in Cincinnati, Ohio and St. Louis, Missouri and recorded observations of herbal medicine use in written field notes and photographs. I found that participants tread one of three different paths in the process of choosing to use herbal medicine. A quarter of participants began using herbal medicine out of a general interest in its use cultivated by social and cultural influences and experiences with herbal medicine throughout the life course. Nearly half of participants began their path with an interest in herbal medicine that that led them to use herbal medicine in response to a situational condition in tandem with the belief that herbal medicine was safer, more accessible, or a better fit than Western medicine. Over a quarter of participants began using herbal medicine after becoming ill or injured and determining that Western medicine was less safe, less effective, or less accessible than herbal medicine. Nearly all participants indicated varying degrees and different forms of concern about pharmaceutical medicine. Most participants indicated a desire to use herbal medicine before seeking Western medical attention, but acknowledged that Western medicine was preferable in certain circumstances, such as to treat traumatic injuries, sudden illness, and chronic pain. The findings of this research complement and expand the growing body of research on the use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) in the Sociology of CAM with a qualitative analysis of how current medicinal plant users initially began using herbal medicine.