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The Magic of the Placebo.
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?
J.E.R. Squires, Oxford, England
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