Part 3: Wellness, but make it scientific (please)

There’s a particular kind of confidence that comes with telling people you’ve “figured out health.” It often involves a smoothie, a supplement, and a slightly condescending tone about medication. If you spend enough time online, you’ll notice that the wellness space tends to orbit around one central idea: your health is entirely within your control. If you just try hard enough, eat clean enough, and think positively enough, you can outmanoeuvre illness.

It’s a compelling message, and it’s been around for a very long time.

When health becomes a moral project

Long before “wellness” became a billion-dollar industry, there were influential figures promoting the idea that lifestyle could cure nearly everything. Exercise, sleep, and diet were framed not just as helpful, but as sufficient. Health wasn’t just something you had, it was something you earned.

Historically, ideas about “pure living” were intertwined with religion, virtue, and discipline. Some recommendations were not just misguided, but actively harmful, dressed up as medical advice. Today, that message has been rebranded. It’s less overtly moralising, but no less powerful. You’ll hear it in phrases like “optimise your health,” “heal your body naturally,” or “fix the root cause.”

The language gets a makeover

One of the more impressive tricks the wellness and alternative medicine space has pulled off is linguistic. “Alternative medicine” didn’t test well? No problem. Now it’s “complementary.” That still sounds a bit fringe? Let’s go with “integrative.” Want something even more polished? Try “functional.”

Each iteration sounds more legitimate, more aligned with mainstream care. But the underlying ideas haven’t necessarily changed. The evidence base certainly hasn’t magically improved because the label became more appealing.

The word “wellness” itself has become so broad that it can mean almost anything. It can refer to evidence-based lifestyle changes, or to activated charcoal toothpaste and something called a “brain optimisation supplement.” These things are not equivalent, but they often sit side by side under the same banner. When everything is wellness, it becomes very difficult to tell what actually works.

The “fix what’s broken” sales pitch

A common theme in this space is the idea that something inside you is fundamentally off. Maybe your hormones are imbalanced. Your gut is dysfunctional. Your brain is broken.

Luckily, there is a solution. It is usually simple, natural, and suspiciously easy to explain.

This framing does two things at once. It creates a problem and sells the answer. You’re told that you can both “optimise” your health and “fix” what’s wrong with you, often in the same breath. It’s a neat rhetorical trick. It also keeps you in a loop where there is always something else to improve because if you’re not feeling better yet, you’re not done optimising.

The two hats problem

If you’re a health professional, there’s an uncomfortable reality here. You don’t get to switch between evidence-based care and whatever else feels appealing that day. There isn’t a version of you that follows scientific evidence and another that experiments with pseudoscience because a client likes the sound of it.

There’s a concept known as the “two hats” problem. You can either practice in line with evidence and ethical standards, or you can step outside of that framework. You can’t convincingly do both at the same time.

People aren’t coming to therapy for entertainment. They’re often distressed, vulnerable, and looking for something that will actually help. Offering treatments that sound good but don’t work is not a neutral act. It has consequences, even if those consequences are delayed or less obvious.

“But people want it…”

They do. People seek out alternative and wellness-based approaches at surprisingly high rates, particularly when they’re struggling. It’s because they’re looking for relief, and they’re often not getting what they need elsewhere.

Traditional healthcare systems can be rushed, under-resourced, and impersonal. Ten-minute appointments don’t exactly foster deep connection. Long waitlists don’t help either. Alternative spaces often step into that gap. They offer time, attention, and a sense of being heard. It’s one of the strongest parts of what alternative medicine offers.

But here’s the uncomfortable reality: the benefits people experience are often coming from the therapeutic relationship itself, not the treatment being sold alongside it. Whilst feeling understood is powerful, it doesn’t mean the intervention works.

The cost of “harmless” pseudoscience

There’s a tendency to think of wellness and alternative approaches as relatively harmless. At worst, you’re out of pocket. At best, you feel a bit better. That’s not always the full picture.

Some products and supplements come with real physical risks. Others interact with medications in ways people aren’t aware of. More commonly, people delay engaging in treatments that do have evidence behind them because they’re trying to make something else work first. Time is important when it comes to addressing mental health concerns. The longer effective treatment is delayed, the harder things can become to shift.

There’s also a psychological cost. If you’ve been told that your health is entirely within your control, and you’re still struggling, it’s very easy to turn that inward. People start to see themselves as the problem rather than the limitations of the approach they’ve been sold.

When wellness meets conspiracies

If you’ve ever wondered why wellness content sometimes overlaps with anti-vaccine messaging, anti-psychiatry rhetoric, or general distrust of “Big Pharma,” there’s a reason for that. At their core, many of these spaces share a common thread: suspicion of mainstream medicine and a belief that there are hidden truths being withheld.

It also makes them very effective from a marketing perspective. If you can convince someone not to trust existing treatments, they’re much more likely to look for alternatives (preferably the ones you happen to be selling).

A useful rule of thumb here: watch what people criticise, and then watch what they offer instead.

Culture (but not as a loophole)

There’s also an important distinction to make when it comes to cultural practices.

Many people draw on cultural or spiritual traditions that provide meaning, identity, and support. These can absolutely be incorporated into therapy in thoughtful and respectful ways. That’s part of good clinical practice.

What becomes problematic is when cultural practices are used as a shield against scrutiny. Suggesting that something shouldn’t be evaluated because it’s “ancient” or comes from a different tradition doesn’t make it effective as a treatment. You don’t have to abandon evidence to respect culture. Both can be integrated carefully and responsibly.

What’s the alternative?

The answer isn’t to strip care back to something cold and purely clinical. The wellness industry has correctly identified that people want to feel heard, understood, and supported. The problem is pairing that with treatments that don’t hold up under scrutiny.

Good care doesn’t require choosing between empathy and evidence. It requires both. It’s entirely possible to provide therapy that is warm, collaborative, and human, while also being grounded in approaches that actually work. It just doesn’t lend itself as easily to catchy marketing or three-step solutions. If the goal is to reduce distress and improve functioning then evidence isn’t optional, it’s your entire foundation.