placebo effect:
noun
a beneficial effect, produced by a placebo drug or treatment, that cannot be attributed to the properties of the placebo itself, and must therefore be due to the patient's belief in that treatment.
For those who have delved into the world of “alternative” medicine you may have found many interesting healing modalities that appear to be nothing short of miraculous and magical compared to conventional Western medicine.
While Conventional Western medicine may be able to produce some good results for some patients it also dismisses several alternative types of healing modalities that have been proven to indeed work, often claiming that such results are unsubstantiated and more along the lines of “witch doctor medicine”. Perhaps a lot of these condemnations are from a mindset of protecting the industry rather that considering the benefits to mankind.
The power of the mind to heal is one that is given virtually no attention by conventional doctors what so ever.
The aim of this article is to highlight that conventional Western Medicine indeed does acknowledge that the mind does have a strong power to heal, affect the body and have an effect on events outside of the body, including other people. This is commonly referred to as the placebo effect.
When one delves onto the world of medical research one will find that a large majority of studies are performed under conditions called “Double blind placebo controlled”. What does this mean?
Basically, it means that when scientists are, testing a new drug / substance on a test group then neither the patient nor even the person administering the drug / substance is allowed to know whether the test subject is receiving the drug or the placebo (blank). Why? Because this greatly affects the results! That is clear proof that people can exhibit psychic influence not only over their own bodies but over others as well.
If a patient knows whether he or she receives a placebo then the patient will be much more likely to exhibit symptoms based upon the knowledge of what they have taken.
Further more- even if the recipient of the drug does not know whether they have been given the drug of interest or a placebo, if the person giving the drug or placebo knows which one has been given to the test patient then this knowledge will also greatly affect the out come of the investigation. Some studies have found that even when the patient knows that they are receiving the placebo, some conditions are still cured in come patients.
Think about this for a few moments. Results of scientific experiments were so skewed because of prior knowledge or the drug giver or the recipient that both of them had to be kept in the dark! The way that testing groups get around this is to use a third party system where no-one know who received what until the test results have been gathered. They then see what test patients received what and then see if there are any correlations.
Case study one
University students were divided into 2 groups. Group 1 was given amphetamines- which are powerful stimulants, which increase heart rate, metabolic rate and excitability. The second group was given barbiturates, which are powerful sedatives that decrease heart rate and metabolic rate.
While group one was given the amphetamines they were told by the people running the experiment that they had in fact been given barbiturates. Conversely- Group 2, who were given barbiturates were told by the people running the experiment that they had in fact been given amphetamines.
The students then had their physical symptoms observed. The results were startling. Even though group 1 had been given amphetamines 50% of this group exhibited symptoms consistent with a person that had been given barbiturates. For group 2- Even though they had been given barbiturates, 50% of this test group exhibited symptoms consistent with a person who had just been given amphetamines.
This is a perfect example of how powerful the placebo (and the power of belief) can be. It can induce people to exhibit symptoms completely opposite to the expected effects of the drugs that they actually took just because of the power of suggestion.
Case study two
This involves airline pilots. One large group was divided into 2 groups, randomly. The average intelligence for each group was tested and the two groups were found to be the same- as one would expect for a random division. Each of the two groups were sent off into separate classrooms and given the same teacher- to teach exactly the same curriculum to the groups- but to be taught separately. The teacher was told that Group 1 was of very high intellectual and learning capacity, while group 2 was of very low learning and intellectual capacity.
The teacher taught the same curriculum to both groups and both groups were given the same exam at the end of their learning course. Again the results were very interesting. Group 1 (the “bright” students) got significantly higher marks in their exams than their counterparts in Group 2 (the “not so bright” students).
This study shows that the expectation of a teacher can also greatly alter the learning capabilities of the students even though both groups had the same intellectual and learning ability.
Here are just two examples out of thousands that illustrate the power of the mind to effect the body, the bodies of others and the learning capacity of others.
So, be careful of what you think and what your intentions towards other are!