The Medicine Chest Within

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Permalink Reply by will on April 10, 2008 at 2:28am

It is clear that the body is intrinsically/inherently designed to self-regulate and
to self-heal. Knowledge of this ability is at the bedrock of osteopathic philosophy and treatment.
In my opinion, any discussion regarding "placebo effects" always takes
place when the body does what it is designed to do, despite what is done to it, such as with "sham surgery" or some drug trial when the double-blind research study method is being applied. This relates to studying the effects of drugs and surgery on the body, and comparing these treatments to doing "nothing" (placebo), or doing something that is "sham". A.T. Still was adamantly opposed to drugs and surgery as a rule (with very small exception for some very few helpful substances in some cases). So, IMO the notion of "the placebo effect" only has meaning within the paradigm of biomolecular medicine and it's attendant drugs, surgery, and double-blind studies.
If you're going to keep within osteopathic philosophy, then you have no need for the word "placebo" or the term "placebo effect" because, 1.) you know that what you as a practitioner do as far as treatment isn't what actually does the healing; the osteopath removes obstacles/restrictions to healing; obstacles to our inherent healing processes. This doesn't feed the ego much. True osteopathic work is humble, because we know we don't supply the healing, and 2.) because the very nature of osteopathic treatment is incompatible with a double-blind study. Osteopathy is not a bunch of protocols! You give individual treatment to the patient, and you probably don't do (exactly) the same treatment each time you see them, because you are not a blind machine - you can respond to subtle changes, and also because you treat the whole person, not parts. This kind of work is incompatible with double-blind studies.
Regarding placebo-effects though, I think that a discussion that is rarely had is the curiosity of what's happening when people get better even though they didn't get "the drug" or "the surgery". It's just written off as "the placebo effect". There doesn't seem to be any curiosity around how does healing take place, and how is it stimulated in these cases (ostensibly without real treatment)?
It seems like such an obvious question.
So, we know that the body is designed to self-regulate and self-heal. Sometimes it can't because there's something in the way; and we also know that the body is marvelously designed to hold it together/do the best it can/compensate, in the face of all kind of obstacles; obstacles to health that the osteopath hopes to discover and to (hopefully) gently (remember: "first, do no harm") "remove". This act will "stimulate"/cause the body to take healing to the next level; as optimal as it can get under the circumstances; this is self-regulation and self-healing, something it is designed to do on it's own, and usually does do on it's own. We do not do the actual healing, we only assist by getting that which is in the way of Health, out of the way.
But Ronan, I think what you are asking is how can we maximize the ability of the patient to turn on their self-regulating/self-healing mechanisms? First, calling that "the placebo effect" I think should be the first thing to go! Let's use different language, please! Don't you think the term "placebo-effect" has a funky connotation? Since we really can't study osteopathy in the usual "scientific" way, why adopt language associated with those methods?
Also, personally I am against psychologically manipulating the patient, and thus utilizing NLP. If one's inherent mechanisms can be turned on/stimulated without using NLP (and indeed it happens all the time, and has been for millenia), why go there? Perhaps it's just more simpler than that. Maybe I'm a traditionalist retro-grouch all the way around. I'm into keeping it simple, not adding yet more techniques. I have more thoughts (really!) around this whole thing but will stop now with this current post

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Permalink Reply by Michael Lingard on April 11, 2008 at 12:01pm

I think you have hit the nail on the head, the greatest danger that besets osteopathy today is "medical terrorism", the inexorable pressures to get medical, to adapt to the modern medical model, to have set protocols that doctors can understand and approve of.
The double blind trial is one such weapon used against the profession, I like the term, I believe that modern medicine has no philosophical foundation and operates by "blind empiricism",
I am predominantly referring to everyday drug therapy not surgical procedures. It is strange that despite the great leaps in scientific understanding we are at the same point Still found himself 150 years ago, osteopaths can have a warm fellow feeling towards surgeons but the over enthusiastic drug therapy of our doctor friends, medicalizing us all from birth to death, does not warm my osteopathic heart!
We need evidential proof these days but we shall have to develop our own scientific testing system that will deal with and encompass the "placebo effect", or in other words those factors that modern medicine cannot embrace
in its 19th or 18th century Newtonian paradigm.

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Permalink Reply by Clement Rhein on April 11, 2008 at 5:52pm

What is NLP all about?

For me, placebo is the power of the mind. The mind thinks that the symptoms are gonna get better, so the healing process is enhanced. By how much? that depends on which paper you read ;-), or what people have experienced.
I found that book in-sighting re the power of the mind:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Head-First-Biology-Norman-Cousins/dp/014013...

Also, something I've realized recently is that what you believe can happen, can happen. "The Secret" (about the law of attraction) is a good one to read/watch for that.

With this in mind, if you give the materials to the patient for their mind to stimulate the getting better process, you're stimulating their self healing mechanism.

I bascically do that by explaining to them exactly what i'm doing and feeling. They come out with greater understanding of how their body works (and how osteopathy works), therefore how it can get better - so they believe that it can. (i don't tell them that I'm manipulating their mind tho :-))

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