The Power of Belief Complementary Therapies, Placebos and Healing

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The Power of Belief Complementary Therapies,
Placebos and Healing

• Gus Cairns

www.guscairns.com
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Preparatory 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

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Healing
Orthodox medicine
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Complementary - 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

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Just 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

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Two 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.
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Placebo 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

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Placebo 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.

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Placebo 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.
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Not 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.

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The 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
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The 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

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Products, procedures, practices
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Homeopathy

• 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

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Massage, 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

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Reflex Kinesiology

• Reflexes tested against questions
• Impossible to cheat
• Harnessing the unconscious and getting under the
  radar of denial

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Movement therapies

• Exercise is good for you
• Emphasis on combining movement with calm
  parasympathetic rather than sympathetic strength
• Connection with spiritual values, other cultures

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Practical demo autogenic training