Heal Thyself Science, Belief, Faith

Remember Pavlov’s dog who was conditioned to salivate at the ring of a bell? Our healing can be done similarly. Our minds are that powerful.

Science:

“Illness is best cured with drugs’. “That assumption has prevailed since pharmaceuticals became widely available. But in recent years there has been a growing interest in alternative medicines, many of which employ mental or spiritual powers to heal the body. Now research into the biochemistry of placebos is showing that these remedies are not as wacky as they sound and that we are, indeed, capable of curing ourselves”.¹

“Science is showing that how you feel isn’t just about what you eat, or do, or think. It’s about what you believe”.²

“Every time we go to healers with the hope that they can make us feel better. And just as a good performance in a theater can draw us in until we feel we’re watching something real, the theater of healing is designed to draw us in by creating powerful expectations in our brains. These expectations drive the so-called placebo effect, which can affect what happens in our bodies as well. Scientists have known about the placebo effect for decades and have used it as a control in drug trials. Now they are seeing placebos as a window into the neurochemical mechanisms that connect the mind with the body, belief with experience”.

“This stagecraft extends to many aspects of treatment and can operate on a subconscious level”.

“Most astonishingly, placebos can work even when the person taking them knows they are placebos. This was reported in a now classic 2010 paper published by Ted Kaptchuk³, a researcher at Harvard Medical School, and his team”.

“The impact of the social group could help explain why religion might in a very literal sense be what Karl Marx defined as “the opium of the people”: It can tap into the ability to access our own store of beliefs and expectations, especially when we’re surrounded by other believers who are doing the same”.

Mental healing:

Mental health professionals have long employed the healing power of our minds in counseling and therapy; for example, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) does for our emotional issues what healers of other stripes do for the body. We help you change your destructive thinking and behavior into positive constructive ones. Just as physical pain, for example, can be alleviated, so can depression, anxiety- mental pain.

This is where Counseling on Demand comes in.  We can employ CBT among lots of other individually-tailored approaches to tap into that power of your mind, leading to believing in yourself and your well-being.

We are online at CounselingonDemand.com

We are only a click away.

1. Simon Worrall, http://news.nationalgeographic.com, November 27, 2016
2. Erik Vance, Unlocking the Healing Power of You, http://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2016/12/healing-science-belief-placebo/
3. Damien G.Finniss, MSc, Ted J Kaptchuk, Franklin Miller,PhD, Prof. Fabrizio Benedetti, MD Biological, clinical, and ethical advances of placebo effects, Published: February 20, 2010, The Lancet