Teresa Hale, the founder of the Hale Clinic in Central London, is surprisingly calm about finding herself in the front line of this week’s furore over complementary care, sparked by a group of Britain’s leading doctors urging all our NHS trusts to stop paying for alternative medicine and to spend the money instead on conventional treatments.
Hale has arguably had more influence on the popularity of alternative therapies in Britain than anyone else, ever since Diana, Princess of Wales, began visiting her in the early 1990s. But the group of eminent doctors, led by Michael Baum, Emeritus Professor of Surgery at University College London, has dismissed complementary care as generally “unproven or disproved”.
Looking through the Hale Clinic’s publicity for its expensive treatments, it does rise eyebrows. Dozens of outlandish treatments seem to be promoted as cures, with no distinction between those that have been shown to work and those that haven’t. The crystal light bed therapy apparently “clears, balances and energises the chakras, promoting healing, health and wellbeing”. Stroke patients can benefit from Marma massage, used in Ayurvedic medicine, which “ can clear away obstructions”. Most amazing of all, we have “natural breast enlargement through hypnosis”, which uses the “latent powers of the mind” to boost busts.
And what about the claim that the clinic “integrates conventional and complementary medicine”? This was its credo when it launched 19 years ago, making much then, as now, of the fact that there are medical doctors at the clinic working alongside the complementary practitioners. This, it transpires, is the key to Hale’s unflustered response to attack from the mainstream medics. “Professor Baum approaches complementary and conventional care as an either/or question, but I believe the answer lies in collaboration,” she says. “I see complementary medicine as making savings for the NHS that Professor Baum can spend on conventional drugs. “This is particularly true if complementary care is used at primary-care level, where it can help to prevent people going to hospital.” Here she wields her secret weapon, her knowledge of medical research and clinical trials. Although she speaks like Joanna Lumley, she’s surprisingly down-to-earth. “A new British study of depressed patients sent by their GPs for homoeopathy has shown good results. Critics might say that it’s just the placebo effect, but at the end of the day, these patients are able go back to work. Permanent depression is a huge cost to the Government.”
What’s more, mainstream medicine needs complementary care to survive, argues Hale, a philosophy and education graduate: “The costs of conventional medicine are going to spiral. It’s not economically sustainable. This is where complementary therapies can help. The orthodox model is good but flawed in terms of cost-effectiveness, particularly with the growing amount of degenerative disease, which has huge cost implications for the UK. If you have lots of people going into hospital for back problems, and chiropractors and osteopaths seem to relieve them, I think that’s a reasonable risk to take. It’s more risky to have hospitals not delivering proper care because it’s too expensive.”
Hale started her first complementary clinic 25 years ago when she was working as a yoga instructor and realised that her clients regularly wanted to be referred to other complementary practitioners, too. Despite her clinic’s glamorous reputation, she seems as concerned about stroke patients as the angst-ridden glitterati, and confides that she is rather unsociable, preferring an evening indoors meditating than glitzing it with the stars. In truth, she’s endearingly mumsy, with her wild hair, throwaway shawl and wary warmth.
But she is also keen to fight her corner in the face of accusations that her therapies often lack research credibility. “The trouble is you can’t do the research into complementary medicine because no one will provide the funding, so you are faced with an impossible situation,” she says. “With treatments such as Marma massage, which has a good historical background with many types of paralysis, should you withhold that knowing that many people find it effective? It will probably never get properly researched.”
So how does Hale choose the 90 complementary treatments on offer at the clinic? It’s only when she explains her thinking on this that the penny drops about what makes her so successful; indeed, why the services she provides make sense if you follow the clinic’s rather instinctive, rather than scientific, logic. Hale says she doesn’t so much choose the treatments as choose the practitioner. “For every practitioner I interview, I look at their training, experience, and what sort of individual they ares. If there’s a professional register for the therapy they perform, I look at that, too. But, particularly with the newer therapies, that’s not always possible.
“When people first came into complementary therapies, everyone thought they were crazy. Now it’s become more fashionable and people are more likely to say ‘I’m bored with my job in IT, I’ll become a nutritionist’. People now ask whether it’s a good way to earn a living, rather than whether they are motivated by care and compassion. I think there’s a different kind of person coming through who thinks that it’s a good career move.” This, she implies, means there are fewer “special” people and she has to be extra choosy.
“There might be a need to develop more passion and empathy; that’s one of the things I’m looking for. I think tender loving care is very important.” What Hale is interested in — indeed what her clinic’s success is probably based on — is not empirical proof that complementary techniques work. It’s that unquantifiable human (possibly spiritual) touch that, in its own right, can make many people feel better.
She emphasises that she does not believe that people “opening up their hearts” is more important than, say, eating and exercising properly for good health. “But I do think that people get out of balance today and we’ve lost the spiritual sustenance that people used to get from the church. There’s nowhere to sit and be peaceful. These treatments give people a certain sense of calm and belief. I think the spiritual side is very important and if you have ‘ holistic treatment’ without a deep spiritual connection there’s a limit to how far you can go.”
She draws attention to examples where complementary practitioners have made patients re-examine whether the pain they feel, say in their back, may have its root in psychological pain. “I think the consciousness of the practitioner can influence the consciousness of the patient in a positive way, and I think that complementary practitioners are going to have to understand this model of consciousness much better.” In the end, you can’t argue with that because you can’t throw scientific proof in the face of faith. I just wish that places like the Hale Clinic made it clearer which treatments have their basis in conviction, and which in science.
The Hale Clinic, 7 Park Crescent, London W1, 0845 0094171; www.haleclinic.com
