... pain expert Dr Howard Brody says that the meaning of the placebo to the patient, and the interaction between the patient and the placebo giver, are the factors that generate the effects.
Related Quotes
The story’s power, then, is twofold: It provides simulation (knowledge about how to act) and inspiration (motivation to act). Note that both benefits, simulation and inspiration, are geared to generating action. In the last few chapters, we’ve seen that a credible idea makes people believe. An emotional idea makes people care. And in this chapter we’ll see that the right stories make people act.
The placebo effect points to the body’s capacity to heal itself, helped along by some combination of trust, faith, and human empathy. Meditation seemed to be promising something similar for the mind. Given the right conditions, the mind could realize its own potential, healing itself through a combination of self-awareness, mindfulness, insight, and compassion. In turning meditation into a standardized medical treatment, something was
being sacrificed, akin to what is lost when one’s kindly country doctor is replaced by a harried technician or a robot.
... the patterned reactivity of the human body. When Barbara “saw” a person who looked like an authority figure with control over her - Irving the course leader - she had a tremendous emotional reaction and an asthma attack. She had probably behaved this way thousand of times before, always in the same manner, without any awareness of her role in creating or generating her reaction. Barbara believed the Irvings in her life were causing her to respond this way. She was a victim.
Pain happens to the body; suffering is a function of language.
... the profound relationship between language and the body’s physiology - a placebo changes expectation.