by bfoks on 8/17/22, 12:05 PM with 18 comments
by zdragnar on 8/21/22, 2:53 PM
Anecdotally, I can say there is a strong placebo effect, but it isn't complete. I think what is missing in all of this is perhaps what role stress hormones have in inducing inflammation in old injury sites.
My wife has chronic back pain due to years of working as a nurse in a hospital, moving patients and such. Some things help, some do not. I have what was once diagnosed as fibromyalgia, and I can say that having lived with it long enough, there are several triggers which are totally unrelated to stress (though stress can play a role too, it isn't necessary).
by meken on 8/21/22, 5:47 PM
Contrary to the article, my best guess is that my psychological pain is not being -expressed- as physical pain, but rather my physical pain is my mind’s way to -distract- me from the psychological pain that threatens to come to the surface.
To see this, notice it’s pretty clear that we distract ourselves in all sorts of ways from psychological pain, i.e. smartphone, social media, hacker news. Physical pain just happens to be a very engrossing form of distraction that takes all your attention and focus.
One can start becoming increasingly skeptical by monitoring how much time during the day you -actually- feel pain. For me, it’s maybe a few minutes, but that few minutes of pain explodes into “I have this massive problem” which produces thought loops and rumination, which are themselves very effective distraction techniques.
by cardmagic on 8/21/22, 2:33 PM
by thenerdhead on 8/21/22, 3:50 PM
Much of modern "vagus nerve connection/mind body" books or childhood/adult trauma books talk about this phenomena of the pain "being in your head". There's also John Sarno's book about back pain. What about the untethered soul perspective by Michael Singer?
I was a huge skeptic of this type of "healing" for my whole life. When I was extremely depressed and experiencing immense pain in my chest area on a daily basis for 14 months where cardiologists had no clue what was going on, I started to go through this "unlearning of the pain". Now that I'm on the other end of it, I feel like I have tools for understanding much of the pain/anxiety introduced by our mind.
by Cyder on 8/21/22, 3:24 PM
by thematrixturtle on 8/21/22, 1:08 PM
Surely a more likely explanation is insurance fraud? Plenty of people see being in a car accident as a ticket to a lifetime of disability comp paid by somebody else's soulless insurance company. If you can qualify for disability with some suitable diagnosis like "late whiplash", yet still enjoy a normal quality of life, that's pretty much winning a jackpot.
by pen2l on 8/21/22, 9:50 PM
The theory by Schubiner is basically that some unexplained pains may be rooted in psychophysiologic etiology, and therefore require intervention of, among other things, psychological varieties.
The good news is, finally, large institutions around the world are getting around to conducting randomized controlled trials to evaluate methods proposed by Sarno et al. (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34589642/). They're seeing interesting results, that psychophysiologic symptom relief therapy helps folk manage and relieve their pain to varying degrees.
by debo_ on 8/21/22, 3:40 PM
Curable: https://www.curablehealth.com/
The Way Out (2021): https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/50021854-the-way-out
by yamrzou on 8/21/22, 5:05 PM
by amelius on 8/21/22, 4:10 PM
Does the placebo effect exist? Yes.
Is it helpful to provide patients with dismissive arguments before they undergo placebo treatment? No.
And the idea of giving readers of this dismissive post a free copy of the book if they send back the outcome of the treatment is therefore also not very useful.
by bozhark on 8/21/22, 8:17 PM
That’s some stupid Chinese medicine level of “if you want hard penis, eat long and hard food”
by pmohun on 8/21/22, 4:53 PM
by carapace on 8/21/22, 4:46 PM
> > the subconscious mind [computer] is unlikely to produce [program] symptoms [output] that will be easily seen [dismissed] as psychological [not a serious fault condition]. But since humans continue to experience great stresses [trauma] and strong emotions, paralysis [ignored signal] has been replaced by [other warning signals] chronic back pain, fibromyalgia, fatigue, irritable bowel syndrome, and many other symptoms.
Sometimes the communication is as simple as "stop drinking" but other times it's something like "This job sucks." or "You forgot you wanted to be an artist."
Another aspect of "psychosomatic" issues is that we develop patterns of chronic tension in the body, which impede the free flow of the various bodily uh, flows of blood, nervous signals, etc., often becoming so severe that numb areas develop where the conscious mind is literally unable to sense some parts of the body. Proprioceptive feedback is distorted or even muted (numbness). In time secondary symptoms develop.
Ergo, directed self-awareness is a kind of panacea. As you "irrigate" these neglected areas of the body with your attention (though whatever method, there are dozens) they heal. Correct the conditions leading to the need for the communication signal and the signal "magically" ceases. The meat computer does not experience subjective pain. It has no interest in hurting you, it literally just does what works. If paralyzing your leg or stabbing you in the lower back keeps you from going back to your shitty job that you hate, that is "Works As Intended" from the POV of the meat computer. The good news is that you can reprogram the computer. You can negotiate less painful signals, or simply incorporate its feedback into your life decisions directly. But you can't fight it. The meat computer runs the physical body, you have no leverage to fight it with, and you are not supposed to fight it anyway. You are supposed to work together.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blind_Man_and_the_Lame
The ancient tale has a deeper meaning. The meat computer, what we call the "unconscious mind", is the blind giant and the conscious mind is the sighted but helpless lame man.
by LanternLight83 on 8/21/22, 5:16 PM