1
Moving Forward? Complementary and Alternative Practitioners
Seeking Self-Regulation
Introduction
Professional status has been and still is considered a worthwhile goal for occupations to work
toward. For example, medical doctors and lawyers have gone through an arduous process to
carve out specialized niches for themselves under the umbrella of professionalisation (Blishen
1991; Clarke 1990; Torrance 1987; Wilson 2001). More recently, other occupational groups such
as chiropractors and midwives have vied for professional status. Professional status implies that a
group has the required knowledge and expertise, as well as jurisdiction or exclusive control over
the content of its work and the conditions under which its members practice (Friedson 1970). In
order to secure autonomy and gain control, an occupation must be legitimated by both the public
and government (Smith-Cunnien 1998).
The transition from occupation to profession has been conceptualised as the
professionalisation process (Abbott 1988; Cant and Sharma 1996; Saks 1995). Studies of the
professionalisation process focus on two aspects, 1) the establishment of “professional
dominance” whereby the state grants a “quasi-monopoly” to the occupation, often through
granting statutory regulation, and 2) the securing of “consulting status” whereby the groups work
to gain the support of and use of their services by the public (Friedson 1970, see also
Pescosolido, Tuch and Martin 2001, p. 3). In this study we focus on the first aspect – achieving
professional dominance. To do this, we examinethe attempts of three
complementary/alternative medicine (CAM) occupational groups (naturopaths,