It should be understood by therapy ( "clinical treatment") and alternative ( "optional to the accepted traditional model" ); but it turns out that when it comes to medicine or health-related issues began to be called 'alternative therapy' to supposed pseudoscientific methods of healing, if not overtly esoteric, which pretend to be a valid option to heal some ailment, and are nothing more than a scam with high risks for the patient. See pseudomedicine, pseudoscience, pseudotherapy.