The Healing Mind Experts Blog
Sound Medicine
The spoken word. The human voice. Neonatologists (doctors that care for newborns) say that the sound of mother’s voice, as well as that of others, affects fetal development, and certainly the sound of loving voices is a powerful way that we welcome and acclimate an infant into this world. It is also a way that we comfort, encourage, and support one another throughout the course of life.
Science and Mind/Body Healing
Literally thousands of scientific studies have demonstrated the attitudinal, emotional, and behavioral effects on physiology and healing. There remains, nevertheless, especially in the medical community, resistance to the idea that people can do anything to influence their own healing. Skeptics claim that many of the methods I will teach you have not been scientifically proven, and to an extent they are right. In considering their role in healing, however, we need to take a closer look at the relationship between scientific proof and the clinical practice of medicine.
Celebrex, Glucosamine, Imagery, and Pain relief
A recent study of glucosamine for osteoarthritis was reported in news media as being both effective and not effective, which illustrates that we really need to look at studies with some depth in order to tell what they really show.
The Power of Positive Expectant Faith
Like most physicians, I have many times witnessed the placebo effect on many occasions. It wasn’t uncommon at the county hospital where I trained to give water injections to overly dramatic patients complaining of pain, while telling them it was a powerful pain medication. Often a shot of placebo solution relieved pain as effectively as if it had been morphine. At the time, we thought that this kind of response to placebos could tell us if the pain was “real” or not. As we’ll see, the issue is not that simple.
Faith Healing, Placebo Effects, and Imagery
When I was in my second year of practice, working in the county medical clinic, a middle-aged woman named Edna came in for a checkup. She was a likable, talkative person who said she had come because “the doctors worry me so and tell me I better keep an eye on my blood pressure.” Her chart revealed that she had been diagnosed with a precancerous condition of the uterine cervix more than two years earlier, and the gynecologists she had seen wanted to take biopsies and remove the affected areas. Edna had turned this recommendation down four times, and each successive note put in her chart by her gynecologic consultants sounded more and more frustrated and concerned. There was mention of possible psychopathology and “irrational beliefs about healing.”
Nocebo (negative placebo) effect is mediated by neurochemical pathways
Researchers in Turin, Italy studied subjects with experimental pain whose pain increased in response to suggestions. They found that the increased pain felt by these “nocebo responders” could be blocked by drugs that interfered with specific biochemical pathways in the brain and stress response axis. The importance of this is twofold - first, that the response to suggestions is mediated by physical biochemical pathways, and second that anxiety about medical procedures can increase suffering, just like reassurance, relaxation, and positive expectations can reduce suffering. Physiology of nocebo response