© 1998 J.E.R. Squires
© 1998 The Brotherhood of Man Library
A placebo is a pharmacologically inert substance administered blind (unknown to them) to a control group in a test procedure as a way of detecting the activity of substances or procedures purported to be effective in treating a particular illness.
Allegedly, the patient’s belief in the effectiveness of a drug or treatment often either brings about a cure or improvement in itself—the placebo effect.
This fact creates a situation calling out for “philosophical” therapy.
There are conditions (such as warts for example) where there is no known treatment that is effective— unless the patient has faith in the effectiveness of the treatment.
How can someone who has this faith actually be cured of what is known to be a real physical disorder, and not just something that is in the mind of that patient (warts are associated with infection by an identified virus)?
Suppose that I am a warty skeptic who is realist enough to realize that if I firmly believe my warts will go away as a result of a treatment, then they actually will.
How can I cultivate that belief without selling out on my critical soul? I am assured by the “experts” that I cannot avail myself of the cure except that I surrender to irrationality. So my dilemma becomes, “If I cure my warts I kill my rational soul.”
Whoever said rationality had survival value?