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Placebo effect Login/Join
 
<w.c.>
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There are numerous stories about physicians performing interventions that either they knew beforehand were not likely to have value, or came to find out the drug given wasn't supported in the research, inspite of the strong positive response of their patients.

I'm struggling with a health problem and recently experienced relief just in starting a new therapy, long before it could have its chemical effect. This leads to some musings on placebo, which research is finding is almost inseparable, to some degree, from the healing effect of prescribed medicinals.

I've noticed several things . . . . .

When a physician tells you you're going to be ok, just "take one of these twice a day," there is an almost automatic release of the fight-flight response. One is no longer deeply worried, and can get out of the way of the body's intelligence (provided the side-effects aren't too strong, which may retard the placebo benefit). When the fight-flight response is released, narrowed attention is relaxed and reopened, and the body's energy isn't constricted, and this by itself must be healing as well.

Underneath all of this there is, it seems, the need to be taken care of, which none of us probably completely transcend. And so the doctor-patient relationship re-enacts not only the shaman-patient relationship, but the mother-child one as well. Included in this might be a need to experience deep faith itself i.e, to give oneself over to the care of the Other without doubt.
 
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Years ago when I took a course on substance abuse, we were taught that the placebo effect is at least 35% of the effect of a drug. If a drug is to be considered effective in treating a particular problem, it has to exceed this percentage to have any real value in and of itself. That's pretty amazing, when you stop and think about it.
 
Posts: 7539 | Location: Wichita, KS | Registered: 09 August 2001Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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