The term traditional medicine is used with two main meanings.

The most common usage is to describe medical techniques traditionally used within various societies and developed before the era of modern medicine . These include broad areas such as herbal medicine, Ayurvedic medicine, acupuncture, traditional Chinese medicine, and homeopathy. Although once solely the province of alternative medicine, traditional treatments have increasingly been subjected to scientific study; some have been discarded as mere superstitions, while others have been adopted to varying degrees in mainstream medicine.

The term is sometimes instead used to describe modern medicine, especially by those offering alternatives to established techniques. In this view, modern medicine is seen as the established form of medicine that is now the traditional treatment for illness, especially in western societies, and alternative approaches are seen as new alternatives to these traditional treatments. In a more antagonistic view, modern medicine may even be seen as corrupt because of the influence of pharmaceutical companies, with its practitioners seen as "traditionalists" for their perceived attachment to established techniques and unwillingness to countenance new approaches, and those following non-pharmacological approaches forming the vanguard of a new, "non-traditional" approach. These alternative approaches may be those falling into the "traditional medicine" category described by the other definition of the term, may instead fall into a broader category of alternative medicine, or may be techniques actually originating in the modern era that have for various reasons fallen out of favor amongst the majority of doctors. The latter usage is particularly common when discussing disputes within psychology and psychiatry between the various approaches to mental illness that have been developed over the past two centuries (see also anti-psychiatry).