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Barefoot Doctor gets a kicking

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Regrettable Juvenilia

13:18 / 21.10.03

A rhetorical, online kicking, that is.

Some of you may be aware of the love, admiration and respect I have for the man who calls himself the Barefoot Doctor, who for some years has had a column in the Observer in which he dispense his own brand of alternative medical advice and homely homilies to the credulous middle classes of Britain. There are few individuals who hold such a special place in my heart as 'Barefoot': Ben Elton, Julie Burchill, all four of Travis, and possibly Sting.

Anyway, the Observer's website recently held a Q&A session in which the Doctor-who-is-not-a-Doctor was "to answer your questions on wellbeing, alternative therapies and medicines and ways to cope with modern life". Or at least, that was the theory. This was the first question:

A case study, Mr Barefoot: my bus has crashed - I've got a compound fracture in my right leg, the bone is sticking out from under the skin and is wedged into the 'Used Tickets' receptacle, my skull has had a good old thump against the seat in front and is impersonating a boiled egg after the first thump with the teaspoon, and my ribs have been broken into bits like a packet of smokey bacon crisps someone has stood on.

What herbs and aromatic oils would you recommend?

It just gets better from there...

(Thanks to Haus for bringing this to my attention.)

13:35 / 21.10.03

I know nothing about this guy but don't you think that some of those message are a bit nasty? Some of them are funny don't get me wrong

Did he deserve it though, what's the real beef with him.. tell all Flyboy is he really in the Ben Elton standard?

13:42 / 21.10.03

That's the best thing I've read for weeks.

14:00 / 21.10.03

% I am delighted to see such open-mindedness about oriental complementary medicine. Why, anyone claiming to represent the healing traditions of a non-western culture and to have been trained by a notorious antipsychiatrist like R.D.Laing gets off lightly if all they get is ridicule - why, that nasty nip-loving subersive should be locked up or done for fraud. IMHO, the biomedical establishment is an apex of human endeavour quite beyond criticism or improvement and I won't have anyone tell me otherwise. %

[post edited to remove inflammatory material which accidently crept in there]

14:08 / 21.10.03

He has a weekly column in the Observer magazine that can be a giggle or hugely insensing by turns. There is sound theory (a lot of nods to Taoist philosophy, for example) underpinning some of what he comes out with but he has a knack of making it sound like an Ab Fab script.

e.g. To encourage ... generosity of spirit, press firmly between the two tendons that run up the midline of the soft-skinned aspect of your forearm about 2in up from the wrist-bracelet until you feel a paralysing ache run into the hand, and repeat on the other arm. This energises your chest, which encourages the emission of love from your person.

If you go to The Observer website and put barefoot doctor in the search engine you can enjoy all his old columns in the archive.

I particularly enjoyed Boo9's question to him in the webchat:
My cat, Roger, is always bringing home headless mice and birds. I have two questions.

Can you recommend a restorative that I might give them? (Obviously this could not be an oral preparation).

He is a bit of an arse, bear, which encourages the rest of us (apart from goodie two-shoes Mr Posters) to take the piss.

*places careful comma there, lest you think I refer to the noble Arse Bear of Arse Island, Alaska*

14:13 / 21.10.03

Yeah I figured he might be an arse...it's just that some of the people on the site sounds a bit ppppffff alternative therapy....

This energises your chest, which encourages the emission of love from your person. is excellent though

I like the one near the end where someone asks him if he bought hard wearing shoes he'd call himself Doctor Martin....

*******************
On a side note I've never heard of the Arse Bear of Arse Island, Alaska do you know where I could find pics of this creature for my desktop at work?

Regrettable Juvenilia

14:17 / 21.10.03

Bill, suggesting that a lack of open-mindedness to the Barefoor Doctor is what you've come to expect from the board, let alone the other more extreme extrapolations which you inevitably toss out, is just nonsense. It's not Barbelith, it's me. ONE person had responded (who wasn't already leaning your way) when you stuck your "nasty, stupid board!" oar in. This does not a reflection of the board make. And see below.

Regrettable Juvenilia

14:30 / 21.10.03

And to address your point directly, let me quote one of the posters on that site:

I'm not 'taking the piss' out of Eastern medicine - that has a long and distinguished history. I object to a half-arsed chancer who knows so little of it that he gives the same cure for just about everything (rub those kidneys now!!) whilst making piles and piles of dosh out of the gullible.

14:41 / 21.10.03

* grabs hold of something and takes ten deep breaths *

alright alright, point taken, post edited, oar withdrawn. I'm just saying though that IMHO some of that chap's books contain some quite interesting stuff. I realise that non-magickal folk may find it hard to take seriously, but what's so wrong with Daoism all of a sudden? And maybe I was a little harsh to accuse anyone who disagrees with him of orientalism/racism, but I just think that any system or syncretised bricolage of non-biomedical healing deserves more detailed scrutiny than, well, y'know, that kind of knee-jerk kicking. (Also, you might be interested to know that - according to the current edn. of Private Eye - an internal memo to Observer staff recently implored them to submit more sensible questions to that site. They've obviously sooo taken it to heart...)

Tryphena Absent

14:42 / 21.10.03

Jeezus people... calm it will you. Flyboy's allowed to hate the doctor and Bill's allowed to jump to conclusions. Oy Vey, this place, it turns me in to a Jewish mother.

14:50 / 21.10.03

Well as Xoc says, there's nowt wrong with the philosphy underlying, adn the techniques may well emerge from venerable schools of medicine, but I can't help think the way he presents it is usually pretty fatuous. Perhaps this isn't a reflection on the man and rather due to the limitiations of the newspaper column format. I think some of these things are on the slow road to acceptance now anyway - acupuncture for instance - but taking the Barefoot Docs columns seriously is a bit like letting someone whose read one book stick the contents of your mums sewing box into your, rather than going to see an established practiconer

14:50 / 21.10.03

oh and to address that last point directly, Fly, yes, I half agree with that poster, but how does he make a. piles of dosh and b. make 'em out of the gullible (or indeed, gulliBill)? Isn't that an invective topos when it comes to complementary medicine? And doesn't it possibly function as a convenient smokescreen for the fact that biomedicine can be just as exploitative (eg. brand medicines like Neurofen selling at up to 2x the price of their generic equivalents, i.e. ibuprofen)?

15:10 / 21.10.03

oh and as for Flyboy's allowed to hate the doctor and Bill's allowed to jump to conclusions, indeed, for such are our current respective places in the ever-flowing cycle of the Dao. It is not a bad thing, it just is, maaan.

As a Daoist once said, "Just how,
Can I try to explain to you Dao?
It is come, it is go,
It is yes, it is no,
Yet neither. D'you understand now?"

Tryphena Absent

15:13 / 21.10.03

No I don't. I think the Daoist may have had trouble understanding the use of language or perhaps it means something else pre-translation

15:26 / 21.10.03

it's spiffingly postmodern, though... :P

15:36 / 21.10.03

I like the way the baiters give up any attempt at pretence halfway through and start using things like 'daft pseudonym.'

Obviously not master baiters, eh?

From last week's Private Eye:

"The Barefoot Doctor is online on Tuesday to answer questions on healing and health. Safe to say, he isn't proving wildly poular and the questions are just a tad aggressive," reveals an internal memo to hacks at the Observer about the paper's alternative health columnist...

[selection of posts like those in link]

...The memo implores Observer hacks to redress the balance: "If some of you take time out to ask a more benign question, then you'll probably feel better for it."

16:12 / 21.10.03

Flyboy, thanks for posting the link because it fair cheered up my miserable afternoon.

Bill, thanks for reminding us of the evils of the business of conventional medicine.

Chill, boys, or your spiritual health will suffer. Think of your emissions of love (particularly you, Bill) and try the exercise I quoted. Never works for me though. I emit love in more conventional ways.

Illmatic, thanks for agreeing with me. That has benefited my spiritual health and my chakras are now tingling. I think the problem is the notion that "medicine" is or has to be one thing, excluding all alternatives. All these schools should be able to learn from each other. Tony Blair's heartbeat flutters, he goes for standard Western treatments and the emergency is resolved, for the time being. So would I.

But if he were to investigate some Eastern ways of dealing with stress, he might not have to be whisked back to Hammersmith Hospital in a hurry for a good while yet. Most western-trained cardiologists would be quite happy with him pursuing that sort of course of action, I expect. A holistic treatment of any kind would be preferable to a prescription for a benzodiazepine. It doesn't have to be only chanting or just pills. There may be a Third Way!

What matters is whether it works. There would be costs to both options though and you would have to know what alternatives there were. Cash in hand and hard information would be the gatekeepers. The barefoot doctor pisses me off because his risible column doesn't do the job it should in turning people on to those alternatives. There's too much prattling on about his Catalan cottage and all the other Eddie Monsoon touches.

I think his heart is probably in the right place but I think his head's on Arse Island.

ONLY NICE THINGS

21:37 / 21.10.03

I'm just glad we finally have a white English guy who can tell us about Eastern medicine. It's not that I distrust it - there is, after all, a proud tradition of folk medicine in these isles based to a great extent on what the folk found useful - it's just that your Eastern type is at best going to know the Eastern medicine of his particular bit of the East. It takes a white English guy to meld all those Eastern bits together into a coherent system of medical treatment, because, lest we forget, that's what white English guys do - help Eastern people to coordinate their ancient wisdom in a more user-friendly, syncretic fashion.

So, thank God the Observer didn't do something crazy like ask a Chinese doctor to talk about Chinese medicine or an Indian doctor to talk about Indian medicine. Like all men of good fortune, they realised that it takes a white guy with a proper English education really to understand the medicinal mysteries of the East.

Christ on a toastrack.

I'm Rick Jones, bitch

22:59 / 21.10.03

Fave quote so far:

"Last year, you wrote an article about the sensation of treading in dogshit while barefoot. Is this a feeling you want others to share when they read your column?"

I'm Rick Jones, bitch

23:03 / 21.10.03

Even better, from user JoePineapples:

I wouldn't advise going around barefoot. Did you see what happened to poor John McClane's feet during his stay at the Nakatomi Plaza? Cut to ribbons they were.

23:59 / 21.10.03

A rhetorical, online kicking, that is.

Bugger.

I'm 100% with you on this one, Flyboy. Thanks for the link.

06:54 / 22.10.03

I think this bit is worth noting:

it's to keep this fine tradition alive, having spent 3 years studying psychotherapy with RD Laing, followed by 3 years training in oriental medicine using their taoist-based methodologies, that i poetically call myself a barefoot doctor.

I mean, 3 years of training in eastern medicine is hardly any training at all. It's like someone studying martial arts for 3 years and setting up their own school. It's mad for someone to be setting themselves up as an authority on something - anything - after only 3 years of immersion in it.

10:18 / 22.10.03

That would be my opinion also.

(To say nothing of the fact that Laing seems to me to be a pretty dubious character in the first place, but that's probably a matter for another thread..)

This Barefoot Doctor guy seems to appeal to the same sort of mindset as people who hang a few crystals up, meditate for five minutes a day but otherwise carry on with their modern Western lifestyles, and yet carry on like they're mystical as fuck and in touch with all kinds of ancient energies..

He gives the impression that adopting these kinds of ideas is just a matter of a few easy surface gestures and nice sounding words, rather than a more involved process of trading an entire set of ideological/cultural/physical habits for a different one, a process which involves a ton of commitment, sacrifice and hard work and so forth..

Hmm.. Reading that back, it does sound a bit "high & mighty killjoy".. so I'll point out that, firstly, I'm not claiming to be any authority on any of this - I know I'm too lazy to get involved in aforementioned process, and secondly, I'm sure some of this guy's advise is sound and leads to practical results etc. - it's just the attitude that pisses me off..

10:34 / 22.10.03

Yeah, it's the whole "spend 5 minutes" on it approach to everything that gets on my nerves. If you are going to see, say, a Chinese Herbalist, I'm sure you'd have a much more in depth treatment, maybe extending over a series of weeks or months - you don't get anything without engagement> Imagine how silly a Western psychotherapist would look trying to cure someone through a 200 word column - "yeah, all that depression and stuff? The bulima and the suicde attempts? yeah, that'll be wanting to shag your mum and bash your dad. Think about that a bit, that'll sort it out". I guess this is why tthe other Observer rent-a-shrink, Oliver James (who I also find insufferable) sticks to topics and issues rather than snap diagnosis.

I dunno, looking toward Sunday Newspaper colums for any depth or certainly as a resource to aid you is pretty much misplaced. It's all pretty much intellectually flavoured entertainment.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

12:42 / 22.10.03

Have to say, this really, really immeasurably brightened up my night at work last night. Fantastic. The guy's always wound me up, too.

Have to say, my woolly liberal side was somewhat relieved when some people defended him (I feel sorry for ANYONE sometimes- God, the look on Ceaucescu's face when everyone started booing him breaks my heart as much as the idea of his summary execution gladdened it) but overall I was glad that the naysayers won. And did it without just recourse to telling him to fuck off. (Although the single word "wanker" at the end of one of the last posts did have me laughing out loud.)

And yes, it's cheap, but the phrase "trouserless dentist" was almost more than I could cope with. And the whole "barefoot doctors/opium" thing right at the end fucking ruled.

12:57 / 22.10.03

I guess this is why tthe other Observer rent-a-shrink, Oliver James (who I also find insufferable) sticks to topics and issues rather than snap diagnosis.

Don't mind his columns too much, but I have the same problem with Oliver James as with Desmond Morris: I cannot suspend my disbelief that individuals who're supposedly psychosocially attuned enough to appreciate the power of appearance would actually choose to wear their hair like that.

I've always had the sneaking suspicion that Barefoot Wanker's a Chris Morrisesque parody. It's gone on rather long, though.

13:47 / 22.10.03

I wish that happened in the US, but our self-important celebs are too smart to use unmoderated forums.

13:57 / 22.10.03

I just think it's shit-hot that one of the ABC Warriors asked a question.

14:39 / 22.10.03

He's massaging his pineapples now. Anticlockwise.

Goodness Gracious Meme

14:55 / 22.10.03

Arrrghhh.

I really don't like BD, unsurprisingly. There is a bit of sense in his basis/foundations, but agree totally with Xoc re his Ab-Fab-isms and annoying writing style.

He gives 'alternative' medicine a bad name, i've had several conversations with people who've been slating non-western medical/healing practices, and point to BD prove their points about these practices being 'hippy bollocks'

grr.

I'm also astonished that he dares to speak with such authority/pomposity after so little training.

If you are going to see, say, a Chinese Herbalist, I'm sure you'd have a much more in depth treatment, maybe extending over a series of weeks or months

Yep. I saw one about ten years ago. Involved several initital hour-long appointments, treatment that was refined over the first couple of months and taken for a year, with regualr monitoring appointments.

And a friend who's doing her initial chinese med. degree has talking about how getting to know alot about the patient is *very* important.

Haus, i'm not hugely sure it would matter hugely that BD was white if he was well-trained, knowledgeable, interesting to read etc. Are white people not allowed to train and practice non-western discplines?

And what about all those indian allopathic doctors, huh?

To me, his race is only an issue insofar as, given that he's soooooon crap, it just looks like superificial/trendy/moneymaking interest in weirdo alternative/groooooovy exotic stuff....

Goodness Gracious Meme

15:01 / 22.10.03

That's kidneys, 'nesh.

Honestly. you conventional western doctors. so uninformed about the amazingly rich cornucopia of Eastern Healing Arts.... (I saw Crouching Tiger the other week, so i should know)

Goodness Gracious Meme

15:02 / 22.10.03

That's kidneys, 'nesh.

Honestly. you conventional western doctors. so uninformed about the amazingly rich cornucopia of Eastern Healing Arts.... (I saw Crouching Tiger the other week, so i should know)

15:05 / 22.10.03

'Joe Kidneys'? Never 'eard of 'im.

16:11 / 22.10.03

Are white people not allowed to train and practice non-western discplines?

weeeel, methinks the Hausmonster has a point in that when these disciplines are appropriated by westerners, it might be seen as another form of (neo)colonialist cultural theft. (Though, of course, applying a western concept like 'copyright' to another tradition is also imperialistic and therefore rather ironic in its own way.)

It's mad for someone to be setting themselves up as an authority on something - anything - after only 3 years of immersion in it.

Better not let 90% of western magickal practitioners hear you say that!! (That point can be taken either seriously or as a throwaway... I mean, one starts working in law after 6 years of training, in (UK) western medicine after 5, and he's been in the game for some years after his six year's training. He's therefore a heckofalot more qualified than many I meet in magick and alternative/complementary healing.)

Has anyone read any of the Barefoot Doctor's books? Maybe the column was asking for trouble as Illmatic suggests, maybe newspapers are lightweight piffle most of the time, but I'm sticking to my opinion that he's not an idiot, nor is he a quack, and the I've-been-shot-what-aromatherapy-should-I-use-on-the-exit-wound style attacks are more puerile than anything the BD's ever come out with. Moreover, given that not long ago I had no idea that he even had a column, now that I've heard about it from two different sources, it ocurrs to me that it may be a stunt of some kind. No such thing as bad publicity and all that...

18:21 / 22.10.03

Better not let 90% of western magickal practitioners hear you say that!!

90% of western magical practitioners and the Barefoot Doctor are pretty much indistinguishable in my book, so I stand by my comments.

I know a few people training in chinese medicine theory, who have been doing so for at least 3 years and who certainly don't consider themselves as authorities on the subject.

I mean, one starts working in law after 6 years of training, in (UK) western medicine after 5, and he's been in the game for some years after his six year's training.

The thing is, unlike law and western medicine, eastern medical practice - from my own admittedly limited experience of the subject - seems to be considered an open ended process, much like training in a martial arts discipline. From the Barefoot Doctor's comments I assumed he was saying he had been involved with eastern medicine for 3 years inclusive of both 'training' and 'practice'. Maybe I'm wrong on that count and I'm prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt, but saying you've had 3 years of training in eastern medicine does imply that's how long you've been in the game. Might just be semantics though.

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