It's the placebo nocebo time again.

[goldisheavy]

http://www.economist.com/node/18710090

[goldisheavy]

So, meditation and shamanistic rituals could be equated to powerful placebos?

 

The whole world is one giant placebo. There is nothing that isn't a placebo.

 

Agreed. One of the best reasons I used to go to my Rolfer was because I had never been in such a "feel good" waiting and treatment room. [Plus, she's really "feel good."] I got a waaaay better feeling there than in my previous acupuncturist's office (musty carpet, worn down building) and also a previous qigong healer (shared waiting area & treatment space, a bit chaotic walk from waiting area to treatment room). [And I really liked that qigong healer, but won't go back to that space!]

 

Taught me to never underestimate the power of one's space!

 

Yes. The whole idea that it's the pill that heals seems thoroughly misguided in my view. That's why conventional medicine is in trouble in every area outside surgery and emergency treatments. But even then, as the article states, many surgeries provide the same bonus as placebo surgeries.

[goldisheavy]

Tell me how I could view our conversation as a placebo.

 

Our conversation is like the sugar pill. It works because you believe it does. I make sense to you because you believe in making sense, in what I show to you, in computers, in these words, in meanings, etc.

 

Gold, in the article, Dr. Ted Kaptchuk is referenced. The article doesn't give his background as a TCM dr., however, in his TCM book "The Web Has No Weaver," he writes of a powerful form of healing that not every TCM healer has access to. He calls it "The Penetrating Divine Illumination." I don't think this is unique to TCM healers.

 

Can I read something more about this online?

 

Perhaps the most powerful "placebo," as you might call it?

 

Yes. For certain rare people who see truly it's not even a placebo. It's only a placebo for those who expect to find a snake in the rope, so to speak. If you see the rope as the rope, then it still works the same way it always has, but you no longer have to call it a placebo, because expecting something other than what happens is not the case anymore.

 

The trick here is not to take the rope example literally, because the rope is an object, but what I am referring to is not necessarily an object (it may be a process, for example).

Edited May 25, 2011 by goldisheavy