Title: The Power of Belief Complementary Therapies, Placebos and Healing
1The Power of Belief Complementary Therapies,
Placebos and Healing
www.guscairns.com
2Preparatory work
- Think of three adjectives that describe the kind
of person you would like to be. - e.g. If you are depressed think happy or
fortunate or loved or gorgeous - If you are stressed, think patient or calm or
organised - If you are sick, think healthy or strong or
energetic
3Healing
Orthodox medicine
4Complementary - or standard of care?
- One daily aspirin cut the risk of heart attack
by 28 - 400-800 IUs of vitamin E cut the risk of all
heart attacks by 47 non-fatal ones by 77 - Electro-acupuncture induced surgical
anaesthesia in 99.6 per cent of women having
Caesareans - 6 out of 6 patients with NRTI-induced lactic
acidosis (mortality normally 50) recovered when
given intravenous B1, B2, niacin and l-carnitine - 3g of l-carnitine for two months triglycerides
down from 5 times normal to normal in 54 of
patients on PIs
5Just feel better, or are better?
- 20 HIV and 9 HIV- gay men
- Daily massage for a month
- Massage subjects had lowered cortisol
- CTLs (CD8 cells) and natural killer cells up/
- CD4 (T-helper) cells did not improve
- Indian study homoeopathy vs placebo for HIV
- PGL group stat. significant difference in
CD4 counts - Placebo group non-significant results.
- Asymptomatic HIV infection, differences not
significant
6Two things are certain about pills that treat
depression Antidepressants like Prozac, Paxil
and Zoloft work. And so do sugar
pills.Washington Post, Tuesday, May 7, 2002
A trial last month that compared the herbal
remedy St. John's wort against the
anti-depressant Zoloft. St. John's wort fully
cured 24 percent of the depressed people who
received it, and Zoloft cured 25 percent. but the
placebo fully cured 32 percentWhat's more, the
placebos, caused profound changes in the same
areas of the brain affected by the medicines. One
researcher has ruefully concluded that a higher
percentage of depressed patients get better on
placebos today than 20 years ago.
7Placebo response not all in the mind
- 51 patients with major depression. 8-week study.
- 52 receiving antidepressants responded
- 38 receiving placebos responded
- Immediate decrease of prefrontal lobe activity
in patients given antidepressants - Gradual increase in prefrontal lobe activity in
patients given placebo
8Placebo response not all in the mind contd.
- They were virtually indistinguishable. At eight
weeks you couldn't tell them apart in terms of
mood ratings. - What happened at eight weeks plus a day was a bit
different. Some of the placebo responders, when
told they were on a placebo, had a deterioration
of their mood. In fact, most of them did. Within
a month, most of the placebo responders had
enough depressive symptoms that they actually
ended up on medications. Once people realised
they were not taking real drugs, the placebo
effect stopped. - Leuchter AF, Cook IA, Witte EA, et al. Changes
in brain function of depressed subjects during
treatment with placebo. Am J Psychiatry 2002,
159122-129.
9Placebo surgery?
Surgery has been slow to take up the challenge
of British epidemiologist Archie Cochrane to
prevent the introduction of new therapeutic
procedures until randomised trials have shown
them to be more effective than existing
treatments... The fact that surgical trials
cannot be double blind or placebo controlled is
often seen as a major methodological problem.
(BMJ, 1995, 3111243-1244 (11 November)
Patients with osteoarthritis of the knee who
underwent placebo arthroscopic surgery were just
as likely to report pain relief as those who
received the real procedure, according to a
Department of Veterans Affairs and Baylor College
of Medicine study published in the July 11, 2002
New England Journal of Medicine.
10Not all in the mind but by the mind
- The changes reported in people's brains under
the placebo effect are profound. But there's a
Catch-22. You can't tell yourself, 'I know, I'll
just kid myself it's working'. It's like deciding
not to think of a skating hippo. The placebo
effect is about something much more profound than
self-deception. Luckily the strangeness of the
human brain comes to the rescue - from studies of
hypnosis. - So, to repeat what Ive been saying, the effects
of complementary therapy are NOT all in the
mind. They are extremely physical. - They may be physical because you take substances
or had procedures done that have real effects. - They may be physical because you are being
touched, handled, listened to, counselled, or are
relaxing activities that all promote the
parasympathetic response - But they may also have a real physical efffect
because the 70 of your brain that is unconscious
is saying to the conscious half YOU ARE WELL. - Many complementary medicines work by drawing out
of you your own ability to heal yourself.
11The hidden observer
During the hypnotic state one part of the brain
reports low levels of pain, while another reports
a high level. After coming out of hypnosis the
subjects report that they did feel pain - but
under hypnosis a hidden observer in a
dissociated part of their brain told then they
were unable to perceive it. Michael Shermer, The
Borderlands of Science, Oxford 2001
12The sceptical comp therapy user - how to set up
your own placebo effect
- Intensive consultation
- Trust between patient and practitioner
- Medicine as process, not as cure
- The will to succeed
- Ritual and discipline
13Products, procedures, practices
14Homeopathy
- Principle of like cures like
- Almost infinitely diluted active substance
- The weaker it is, the stronger it is
- Memory of water theory
- Intensive consultation psychotherapeutic effect
15Massage, shiatsu etc
- Permission to be touched by a stranger
- Real effects on redistributing toxins like lactic
acid out of muscles - Parasympathetic relaxation effect
- Psychological effect reversion to infancy
16Reflex Kinesiology
- Reflexes tested against questions
- Impossible to cheat
- Harnessing the unconscious and getting under the
radar of denial
17Movement therapies
- Exercise is good for you
- Emphasis on combining movement with calm
parasympathetic rather than sympathetic strength - Connection with spiritual values, other cultures
18Practical demo autogenic training