The Placebo Effect and Everyday Life
The effects of placebo are usually linked to medicine, but they can be found anywhere around us. Did you know that pedestrian traffic lights are often used just so they could give us a sense of control? Or that the buttons used for closing the elevator door don't have any real function? Or that office buildings often have systems that emit a fake air conditioning noise and also fake heat regulators? Perception is the key to everything – psychologists, doctors, sports trainers (instructors) and various business people (managers), politicians or religious leaders know this and often use it. Sometimes even to our benefit (e.g. psychologists, doctors, sports trainers).
Today's unconventional (alternative) medicine, just like biomedicine, doesn't have any connections to the past (apart from a historical perspective) folk medicine, i.e. treatments done by different medicine men, healers, witches, etc. which is today thought of as backward. In today's terms, it greatly surpasses the ways that medicine men or witches prayed or danced in order to cheer up their gods and return one's health, send rain, etc. All medical systems as well as the parallel ones (alternative) have gone through their own developmental path and successfully supplement each other.
Today's, e.g. homeopathy, ayurveda, acupuncture, acupressure, phytotherapy, Chinese herbal medicine, bioenergetic therapy, reiki, chiropractic, osteopathic, manual medicine, various therapies that manipulate with the spine, bones or feet, aromatherapy, sound therapy, etc. are all systems for which different renowned and serious school and colleges exist in the world and where future experts – therapists are being educated.
Unfortunately, in many countries around the world, the law didn't precisely regulate how to run such a parallel, unconventional and alternative medical system so, because of that, many unqualified therapists-healers have taken advantage of such a chaotic regime and tried to make money thanks to the lack of knowledge and weakness of sick people. Such unprofessional therapists-healers are not at all or are not qualified enough to run such a business. These experts often identify their position of a therapist with some kind of messianic role (especially in the area of spiritual medicine and some forms of energetic medicine) so they turn it into a "comedy” which entirely lowers the value and dignity of their profession.
Such unqualified therapists take advantage of the fact which is pretty know today- thanks to placebo, i.e. placebo therapy 60-90% of illnesses can be improved among patients. Because of this, among others, many unprofessional spiritual medicine therapists, fake astrology experts, tarot card readers and others who unprofessionally take on other methods of esotericism find their place here. All of these different healers as well as some religious and spiritual groups offer one thing- salvation, enlightenment, new cognition, an increase in your physical and psychological performance, your spiritual growth and development. But is it all truly as they say?
Such unqualified (fake) therapists-healers often hang different medical images (charts, anatomy maps, chiropractic maps, maps that depict chakras, etc.) on the walls of their rooms (offices). This way, they are trying to impress you with their "knowledge” and their so-called professional titles so that you can become convinced in their qualifications.
But if you listen to them more carefully, you will see that, from the 639 muscles that the human body has, they are aware of just a portion of them (usually those are the biceps, triceps brachi, deltoid, pectoralis, abdominal muscles, gluteus, rectus femoris, soleus and sometimes the trapezius and adductor). They rarely know for any muscles outside of these groups.
By David " Sensei" Stainko
Professor, Master of Kinesiology
Part 2