When the question Could a union with healthcare be the spa industry's reward for becoming more savvy about scientific research? was asked in a recent edition (3, 2010, Scientific Proof, p. 20-22) of Spa Business magazine I wanted to know if savvy meant understanding the limitations of science and working with those, or using science as a tool of limitation and control that might not be to the ultimate benefit of spas or those who enjoy them.
I hope the previous posts have been, at least, thought-provoking. This last post in a series of four on the proposed alliance between spa and the healthcare industry looks at the social implications of scientific rational and highlights some special though not scientifically provable qualities of spa worth preserving.
Creativity, Culture and Community
I like to envision spas as community-based ventures - staffed by gifted trustworthy healers both trained and free to be intuitively creative; focused on slow, caring attention to individual needs for pleasure, relaxation and well-being; and built simply and unobtrusively within a natural water-based setting.
A special quality of this kind of spa would be that it could bring us back to our natural roots. Spa venues themselves are often set in nature or try to emulate that. Some of those of us who seek these places hope to be treated as a person and not as a patient. We don't expect to remain wrinkle-free and unmarked by life's challenges. We want respect and understanding for who we are, and we want to make our own choices.
Spas can be places of culture and creativity, both of which are linked with a broader vision of health than conventional medicine alone allows. They have brought some of the ancient healing practices and concepts that were effectively suffocated by modern culture back to life; and they have added a few innovations of their own.
Where these remain healing arts, they are often fun; where they are focused on positive health, they can be beneficial or at least harmless. When they turn into sciences (or pseudosciences), many lose the healing touch or even become potentially harmful.
Keeping a track of benefit vs harm is wise and it often happens quite naturally in small enough community settings. If something isn't working, people hear about it from people they know and trust, and don't support it.
I'd like to see spas focusing on what I call the three Cs - creativity, culture and community - and celebrating the local strengths of these. In global communities, where information is less personal and easily manipulated - whether its source is science or not - accountability and truthfulness are hard to come by.
The commonly espoused three R's - research, regulation and raising standards - try to address that but they are based on dominant models that may also: 1. remove individual responsibility and choice; and 2. suppress innovations that don't fit the model or offer profits. It may all be done in the name of safety for the consumer but as we're already seeing regards food, for example, in reality this safety is questionable.
Just as family farms are being swallowed up by agribusinesses, we might soon see spas swallowed up by healthcare hotels. One of the experts in the Spa Business article that provoked this series of posts says that: 'The first hotel chain to come out with evidence-based spa therapies, because they've done specific medical research on their treatments, will have a major advantage over their competitors.'
The association of scientific credibility with corporate business opportunity is not always as benign as it can seem. From the reverse direction, another of the article experts says: 'The true scientist must take heed that something has to be working, since the [spa] industry is very profitable and people don't spend their money unless they feel it is worth it.'
The latter expert said in passing at the end of the Spa Business article: 'One might question why the spa industry would want, or need, the approval of the scientific community.' I do, and here is a little more on the reasons why ...
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