Many researchers are now convinced that a good proportion of the benefit derived from real medication is received from the placebo or “halo” effect. Since everyone, including the doctor, knows that extensive testing goes into new drugs, when one is released for use, the doctor expects it to work, the patient expects it to work – and it does work.
A placebo works because the subconscious mind finds ways of bringing about what you imagine, and believe, will happen.
Because of the undoubted power of the mind to produce healing, or indeed sickness in the patient, doctors worldwide are more and more moving towards holistic medicine. Holistic merely means (W) holistic – treating the whole patient – not just his body, but his mind too.In one of the most dramatic proofs of the power of mental attitude over recovery rates, 152 cancer patients at the Travis Air Force base in California were rated by their doctors, as to whether they had a positive or negative expectation of recovery. Without exception the patients with positive expectations had far more successful remission rates. In fact only 2 out of the negative attitude patients showed any response to treatment at all. So much so that the physician in charge was able to state that …”A positive attitude towards treatment was a better predictor of response to treatment than was the severity of the disease. ”
The above examples all illustrate the power of the imagination to suggest behaviour and attitude changes. In some instances that power was brought about by auto suggestion – the mind voluntarily created its own reality. In other instances the suggestion was from an external source. Someone had “put the idea in the subjects’ head”
Taken From: Accelerated Learning


