Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM): Using Ichiro’s Batting as an Analogy

The majority of complementary/alternative medicines (CAMs) approach the mind and spirit while Western medicine only focuses on the body. It can be said that CAM is a methodology that empowers one’s life field. The essential nature of CAM can be explained by the concept of “Salutogenesis,” which regards that we exist somewhere between the point of “healthy” and that of “ill.” This is a totally different concept from that of western medicine, which tries to label us either as “healthy” or as “ill.” We can go forward step by step with CAM while dreaming of a miracle, a complete cure from disease. In this paper, we attempt to explain the fundamental nature of CAM by analogizing it with Ichiro’s batting, which always tries to make a single hit while not giving up on the chance of a home run.