Last night, I posted this to Facebook :

OUT : Calling it the “placebo effect”.
IN : Calling it the “kiss it better effect”.
Remember how much better you felt after your mama kissed your boo-boo better? Well that is exactly how the placebo effect works. Someone has had their pain acknowledged and had nurturing to compensate, and the fact that mother’s kisses have no known medical benefit does not matter the tiniest bit. It’s the nature of the emotional transaction that matters, whether it’s mama’s kiss or a pill from another authority figure, your doctor. (Or herbalist or feng shui guy or whatever).

Clearly, I have done a lot of thinking about the placebo effect.

It fascinates me as a brain nerd, because it’s all about the mind-body connection and the mysteries it entails.

It fascinates me as a philosopher, because seriously, what does this say about the nature of human reality? Can something as fundamental as pain and disease really be overcome with mind over matter? Is it ethical to give someone a placebo while lying to them that it is totally legit medicine?

And it fascinates me as someone with a deep interest in compassion, empathy, nurturing. caring, and the real physical effects they can have on living beings.

I think the main reason that scientists cannot figure out how it works is because they think too clinically. Precise, meticulous, clinical thinking is the currency of science, but sometimes that narrows the focus to things already backed by facts and numbers and measurements, and that precludes true theorizing, which is much more of a creative endeavour.

So despite the mounds and mounds of evidence of the irrefutable objective existence and efficacy of the placebo effect, scientists simply cannot make the jump into truly believing that something as ephemeral and unprovable as state of mind can have a verifiable effect on something as comfortably real and literal as the human body.

So they continue to try to find a way around it. This is a classic case of an empiricist delusion. They can’t accept that the placebo effect is real, no matter how many times they prove it, so they keep on trying to disprove it and just end up confirming it over and over again.

When you refuse to accept overwhelmingly conclusive evidence in order to preserve your beliefs, you are just as deluded as all the climate change deniers.

I, luckily, have no such philosophical straitjacket to constrict me. I consider myself to be, on some level, a scientist, but one far more in the tradition of Einstein than the traditional lab scientist.

To me, like I said on Facebook, nurturing is the key. We need someone to acknowledge our pain and then perform an act of nurturing to kiss it better. All emotion is information that needs to be delivered and received, and so when someone, be they an MD, a homeopathic practitioner, or some African dude with a bone in his nose shaking a rattle.

One thing I would like to note is that the empirical types like to vilify the placebo dispensers. And it is not hard to see where they are coming from. These people often quote patent nonsense to support their claims (diluting something makes it stronger? really homeopathy?) and so if you judge them as applied scientists, they are peddling snake oil and should be run out of town on a rail for the good of the public.

But here’s the thing. Most people do not judge them as applied scientists, like doctor. To the average person, all they see is someone who might be able to help.

And they are not wrong! If the practitioner successfully engenders belief in the power of their particular practice, then whatever quack nostrum they are peddling will actually successfully kiss it better.

And medical doctors know this. That’s why there is such a thing as a placebo in the first place. They know, through their practice, that sometimes people come to the doctor feeling sick but all they really need is someone to listen to their complaints then perform an action of caring.

They need someone to kiss it better.

And look at it from the point of view of the alternative medicine practitioner. They learned their particular practice from a mentor (usually) and the mentor believed in it. And then they opened their own practice, and “treated” people, and those people came back and told them how well it worked and how they feel so much better now, so obviously, it works, right?

So I think the world needs these people, as hard to hack as they can be. At least until the medical profession takes the right lesson from these people and learns to be more warm, accepting, friendly, relaxing, and open.

That’s what really drives people to alternative medicine. If what the person needs is acknowledgement, sympathy, and an act of nurturing, then modern medicine does a pretty shitty job of providing it. Doctor’s offices are cold and clinical, with no regard for people’s lives (that’s why it doesn’t bother them to be late… it’s not THEIR time they are wasting) and filled with frightening looking equipment and the prospect of having to be nude in such a terrible place.

Hospitals are worse.

And so your friendly neighborhood herbalist can fill that gap. Being unencumbered by scientific rigor means they can spend time listening, being sympathetic, providing a pleasant and friendly environment, and give people the kind of ritual of nurturing that seems friendly and human and pleasant.

So I have no problem with these practices, provided they stick to the rule that says “only if traditional medicine hasn’t worked”. With that taken care of, anyone who sincerely wants to help people will understand that whatever makes people feel better, regardless of how ludicrous it seems. is a good thing.

The placebo effect may be troubling, but in the war against human suffering, we cannot afford to ignore its power.

Now if you will excuse, I feel a headache coming on and I need to find my Magic Pain Magnet.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.