Exploring the Placebo Effect - Great Boston Globe Article
via boston.com[T]here’s enough data for doctors to start thinking of the placebo effect not as the opposite of medicine, but as a tool they can use in an evidence-based, conscientious manner. Broadly speaking, it seems sensible to make every effort to enlist the body’s own ability to heal itself--which is what, at bottom, placebos seem to do. And as researchers examine it more closely, the placebo is having another effect as well: it is revealing a great deal about the subtle and unexpected influences that medical care, as opposed to the medicine itself, has on patients.
Fantastic article from the May 9th edition of the Boston Globe, discussing the growing acceptance of the power of placebo within the medical community. In many cases, placebo is demonstrated to be more effective than pharmaceutical treatments, but what I find particularly interesting is the debate surrounding the ethics of placebo, how to administer them while being "honest", and the question of whether or not they might still be effective even if the patient knows that it's a placebo.
Turns out, there's some evidence that in some cases, despite consciously knowing that a placebo is, well, nothing, the subconscious mind is still convinced that it will work, and therefore it does.
Reminds me of my own work with hypnosis. While hypnosis is not a placebo treatment, the same conscious/subconscious conflict is in action. It's the very foundation of hypnosis, in fact. For instance, pretend for a moment that you have a habit that you'd like to get rid of, such as smoking. You consciously want to quit, while you're habit - a subconscious pattern - refuses to die. The subconscious always wins out, regardless of what your conscious mind wants.
In hypnosis, we exploit several key features of the subconscious in order to directly address it - and reprogram it - instilling a new habit - that of being a non-smoker. Hypnosis is used to get the subconscious and the conscious into agreement. We make your subconscious believe that you're a non-smoker, bringing it into alignment with your conscious wishes.
In the case of a placebo still having effect despite consciously knowing about it, it's a similar situation. The subconscious doesn't care what the conscious thinks. If it believes that a treatment is effective - a placebo, for instance - all the "conscious" knowing in the world is not going to sway it.
I love the thought that the reality of an experience has nothing to do with "reality" at all.
