What do we really know about how the body heals? Why do doctors and researchers routinely dismiss the placebo effect? How much of today’s medical practice is really “evidence-based”? And what happens to patients when medicine focuses primarily on high tech and low touch? This is one of the themes explored in this blog.
A second theme — a book-end to the above — is a focus on ancient, low-tech or high-touch modalities such as acupuncture, Healing Touch, Somatic Experiencing and other forms of energy medicine. What kind of healing is possible when we are open to more than one kind of “medicine?”
Finally, we will consider the kinds of cost savings and quality improvements that would be possible in a health care reform plan that included both high-tech, Western medicine and low-tech, high-impact healing. What if we decided to harness, rather than dismiss, the powerful placebo effect? What if we strengthened the body’s own healing response through techniques such as acupuncture, Healing Touch and reiki … techniques which, like the placebo effect, have powerful benefits and no side-effects? Stay tuned as Third Opinion explores these issues, and more, in coming days.
Third Opinion 