50. Placebo: I will please… whom?
Let’s journey a bit on the well-known placebo-effect: getting better from medication until you discover it’s a sugar pill or otherwise doesn’t work in itself. You have probably heard of it. But do you think it’s far from you sickbed? Think again! There’s no medication coming on the market unless it’s been scientifically compared to a placebo… and in the action is found to have itself a placebo effect. So the last time you were under its influence was probably the last time you took medication. We’re all in the placebo boat.
◊◊◊
Fact: the placebo-effect encompasses at the average +/- 50% of the total effect of present-day medication.
◊◊◊
Consequence: this makes placebo the most powerful medication of all. This means: you yourself, the patient as cure, the inner pharmacy…You can heal yourself. This is too good to stay hidden behind a placebo, no?
◊◊◊
Give to medication what belongs to medication
but certainly give to yourself what belongs to yourself!
◊◊◊
The term ‘placebo’ comes from Latin and literally means ‘I will please’. Namely: the doctor pleases the patient with ‘something’ until the patient gets better by himself. This was/is meant to be for the good of the patient, but one can really ask whether in the end this is the case? I think not. In the end, the one who is really pleased, more than the patient, is the doctor him/herself!
◊◊◊
Placebo is a lie. The proverbial sugar pill only works if the taker doesn’t know he’s taking a sugar pill. Now, the following cannot be much of a surprise to you: a lie can never cure! It cannot go deeper than the relief of psychosomatic symptoms. This may ‘please’ in the short run, but certainly not in the long run.
◊◊◊
A lie is a lie.
Health wants truth and nothing but the truth
So help you yourself!
◊◊◊
It’s obvious to me. A placebo heightens a person’s dissociation (see other Sticky Thoughts). In doing so, it brings psychosomatic disease closer by, not further away. It brings you only temporary relief of symptoms. The price you pay is your health and well-being, certainly in the long run, and if you’re unlucky, even your very soul.
◊◊◊
‘Loss of soul.’
Nowadays known as ‘depression’.
◊◊◊
Fact: the placebo-effect encompasses 70-100% of the total effect of modern-day antidepressants.
◊◊◊
Consequence: you may fill this in yourself.
◊◊◊
Related Posts
A Tale of Placebo: Arthritis of the Knee
Generally, people do not easily relate placebo to surgery. Think again. Bruce Moseley is an American orthopedic surgeon with a peculiar story to tell. In the early 1990s, he was widely regarded as an expert on knee arthroscopy. Receiving excellent feedback from many patients, he wanted to know how effective these operations were. This is Read the full article…
What vs. How in Psychotherapies
Crucial is where change comes from: the outside or the inside. I see in the latter the Compassion-factor. Compassion For a quick entry into the concept of Compassion as I use it, [see: “Compassion, basically“] Compassionate healing comes from the inside out. This ‘inside’ doesn’t just mean ‘inside the mind.’ It goes deeper within the Read the full article…
The Trauma of Not Growing
Mental trauma, whether resulting from a single life event or a long-term traumatic condition, jeopardizes mental growth. Or is the lack of growth the trauma itself? Living nature is about growth. Plants grow in size; then, they grow seeds in order to grow more plants of the same species. All plants must die, but they Read the full article…