The Promise of Psycho-Soma-Therapy

October 13, 2022 Health & Healing No Comments

Looking at some skeptical questions in need of sensible answers to grasp the promise of using the psyche, therefore also of Lisa’s impact on bodily health (psycho-somatics).

This hyper-hyperlinked text brings several strands together to make a point of the promise. The intrigued reader can delve further into many directions.

Two sides

On the one hand, it seems non-common-sensical that the ephemeral mind can considerably impact the solid body.

On the other hand, the placebo effect seems to have a huge impact on health and healing, arguably as much as established medical treatments. As you may know, the AURELIS aim is to understand and transcend the placebo, thereby bringing the effect to many in an open, profound, ethical, and scientific way. This will diminish the need for a placebo itself ― in any of its guises. This is as far-reaching as it sounds, not stopping at the borders of CAM, psychotherapy or medicine.

About illness and healing

The idea that illnesses are distinct entities that come and go, whereby health is the absence of disease is a chimera. There are continua everywhere in health and healing, primarily but not exclusively when the mind is involved.

In this flux of more or less healthy elements, mind-related factors can play fluid roles – positively or negatively – without much need for conscious awareness. In the real complexity of inner and outer worlds, many simultaneous influences make it challenging to discern elements that are by themselves hard to grasp conceptually. Subconceptual influences can be substantial, at the same time hidden due to a basic cognitive illusion.

This and other factors make the proof of mind on health difficult, but not therefore impossible. Lisa can play a huge role in this, in the future.

The challenge

The immense challenge is not that we know there is little (influence of mind on body), but that we know little. Compare it with the state of medicine 170 years ago: a bygone time of leeches, clysmata, and venipunctures.

How will the future, 170 years from now, look at the present state of psycho-soma-therapy? In principle, it may be with the same incredulous look in the eyes.

But don’t we presently have the science that proves we’re right?

No, dear reader, we do not have that science regarding psycho-soma-therapy. The elements we do have, point in the direction of an immense implicit blindfold. Of course, no one puts on that blindfold knowingly ― no conspiracy in this.

Still, just a few examples:

With scientific certainty, psychotherapeutic models and techniques don’t work apart from ‘common factors.’
Conceptual (biochemical, physiological) causal structures of distinct psychological (therefore also psycho-somatic) disorders are unknown ― not some of them, all of them. Described disorders are sets of symptoms, not causally differentiated categories.
Antidepressants’ placebo-part ranges from 80% to disconcertingly more.
Some frequently performed operations carry the same amount of placebo effect.
Double-blind studies are pretty much less blind than is generally assumed at present, thus overrating somatic solutions and underrating the involvement of the mind.

Knowledge that could lead to proper psycho-soma-therapy is in many places hidden in plain sight.

Can the mind influence the body?

Sure, move your hand and see your mind’s impact on your body through your ‘ephemeral’ decision. For this, your mind doesn’t need to jump over an abyss since, actually, mind and body are the same: two views, one thing.

There is no abyss between the mind and the body.

Can this happen without conscious involvement?

Non-conscious mental processing is a fact. Moreover, it comprises most of what meaningfully happens in the mind/brain.

For instance, one can be non-consciously stressed. At the long term, this can lead to chronic psycho-somatic illness without conscious causal awareness.

Don’t we know most of what makes us bodily ill?

In many conditions, there are huge gaps in causal knowledge. Many patients suffer from Medically Unexplained Syndromes ― more than 50% if we count the unknown causes of seemingly known causes.

Moreover, in most cases of disease, there is not one single cause but more something like a whirlpool of causes. Meanwhile, much of causal medical thinking is still deficiently uni-causal, especially when the mind is involved.

Why does psychotherapy presently not heal many psycho-somatic diseases?

Present-day psychotherapies are still mainly floating constructs with little grounding in the more fundamental reality of the brain/mind.

This principally diminishes their capacity to act psycho-soma-therapeutically. AURELIS, being fundamentally different, may change the above in the future with Lisa, again, playing a decisive role with real-world scientific proof ― also important for healthcare payers.

Does this look like the mind plays hide and seek?

Indeed.

However, this appearance comes from the fact that the non-conscious brain/mind generally works so well and from the inside. We take much of what is mind-related for granted, but note: It’s already a minor miracle that you can think one thought or read one blog-essay. The mind/brain is a fine piece of equipment.

Therefore, it should be no surprise that it can do many more things – including health-related – behind the scenes of conscious awareness.

How can we make psycho-soma-therapy happen?

In good AURELIS setting, users are not dependent variables on which therapeutic techniques are administered. Much Inner Strength is available to anyone ― no need to create this, certainly not by any magic.

The challenge lies in orienting this Inner Strength. If we can do so, inviting it toward desired goals, we have many possibilities to influence health for the better.

This is Lisa’s goal.

See The Lisa Revolution. Making abstraction from the concrete Lisa, what she stands for is not just a promise.

It is our best chance to find out who we – humans – really are and how to act upon this newly found knowledge.