Want some spontaneous self-activated healing?
Placebos have been on my mind lately. My family has been passing around a tough cold these past few weeks and going through a fair amount of DayQuil for symptom relief. You may guess where I’m going with this — did you catch the recent news from the FDA announcing that its decongestant ingredient (found in many common cold medications) does not work?
I imagine this news made a lot of people angry. Nobody wants to be duped or tricked, especially in the realm of health, especially if it was done knowingly and with malicious intent (prioritizing profit above well-being, for example).
While the systemic ethical failures of our pharmaceutical companies and healthcare system are a topic worthy of scrutiny and outcry and action, I’m going to stay in my lane for now — what really fascinates me about this case is how these medications have worked for so many people for so many years.
All those times when DayQuil eased my congestion, the decongestant wasn’t working? So then what was? I guess it was the magic pixie dust that an FDA stamp of approval provides — the placebo effect.
As one article defines it, the placebo effect has “positive outcomes that cannot be scientifically explained by the physical effects of the treatment.” My symptoms were verifiable, and my relief was verifiable, but the medicine was not — so I shrank my nasal passages with my own intention? Who knew I had that kind of power?
Maybe the power of congestion relief does not seem very impressive, but the placebo response is associated with way more than healing the common cold. Did you know that “sham” surgeries for knee pain, back pain, and even neurological disorders have been found “just as effective” for some people as regular surgery? Read more about it here (and in additional links, below).
If you hear that someone recovered from a debilitating ailment after receiving an “unproven” treatment — maybe “sham” surgery, a placebo, or even some kind of far-out New Age practice — we may think, “I guess they weren’t actually sick, it was all in their head.” And yet this happens all the time in hospitals and medical studies and pharmaceutical trials for all manner of illnesses and ailments to a much greater degree than we probably realize:
“In recent decades reports have confirmed the efficacy of such sham treatments in nearly all areas of medicine. Placebos can help not only to alleviate illnesses with an obvious psychological component, such as pain, depression and anxiety, but also to lessen the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease and inflammatory disorders. Occasionally, as in Mr. Wright’s case, placebos have shrunk tumors.”
I find it remarkable how this is just a standard, scientifically established, commonly accepted fact, demonstrated again and again, and yet we still generally think about the placebo response as a kind of hurdle to overcome on the way to discovering “actual” medicine, instead of the intriguing mystery it really is.
Maybe it’s time to come up with a new term. What if when someone’s health markers improve in response to “inert” medical interventions we called it “spontaneous self-activated healing”?
75% of trial participants demonstrated improvements in response to the new drug, and 50% of trial participants receiving a placebo demonstrated improvements through spontaneous self-activated healing.
Sounds incredible, right? Yes, it’s important to get the pharmaceuticals right, and it seems equally important to acknowledge this fascinating phenomenon and figure out the underlying mechanisms behind unaccounted for positive outcomes. We are so much more complex than our biochemistry, and it’s to the detriment of our health and well-being to rely exclusively on “mechanical pathophysiology,” as the Harvard Medical School program on placebo studies put it.
Occasionally someone will ask me how I know whether my work is verifiably effective or if positive outcomes are “just the placebo effect.” My response is that I can’t prove anything, we simply don’t have the metrics. Also I am not particularly concerned. I know what I perceive in people’s energy fields, and I see the positive effects of my work. And if I induce “spontaneous self-activated healing” in someone who is suffering, I would consider that time and energy well spent.
Some fascinating placebo studies
Placebo Effect: A cure in the mind
In studies and in real life, placebos have a powerful healing effect on the body and mind
What if the placebo effect isn’t a trick?
Is the placebo effect for real? (Podcast)
The Art of Surgery: The strange world of the placebo response
Review: In Cure, Accepting the Mind’s Role in the Body’s Health
