11 ms·

"Over the past two decades, a number of studies have shown that Reiki treatments help diminish the negative side effects of chemotherapy, improve surgical outco

"Over the past two decades, a number of studies have shown that Reiki treatments help diminish the negative side effects of chemotherapy, improve surgical outcomes, regulate the autonomic nervous system, and dramatically alter people’s experience of physical and emotional pain associated with illness." The article links, with the phrase "a number of studies" to what seems to be one study [1]. In this study it looks like they surveyed people who regularly attended reiki practitioners about their trips and found that these people reported positive results. This doesn't seem like a very compelling study to me. Of course people who go to Reiki will think that it works. That doesn't mean that it does work. People think that placebos work. I'd like to see a study where half of the Reiki guys are people put through a Reiki training course and the other half are people taught to do the opposite of the intended techniques. On the one hand, I can see the value of a placebo like institution where people wave their hands and say and do soothing things, and if that makes you feel better, then great. I don't think we need to pretend like this is some kind of mystery though, except as it is a specific case of the more general placebo mystery - which is interesting. Maybe they go this direction in the article. I stopped reading after it became clear they don't have good evidence that Reiki works. This also reminds me of the story of an astrologer who genuinely believed in astrology and practiced it according to complicated rules. Somehow he makes a mistake or starts to doubt things, and starts giving people their astrology report (or whatever it would be called) as the opposite of what it should be. Sure enough, the opposite analysis worked just as well as the "correct" analysis. 1 - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31638407 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31638407

chrischen 7y ago
If a placebo works generally then it works. Isn't all psychotherapy in a way just a placebo?
- klipt 7y ago
  At very least, reiki practitioners care (or pretend to care) about your well-being, which must be nice for people going through stressful things like cancer, especially if they don't have a good support system from family etc. Astrologists and homeopaths might be equally effective in these cases.
- connectsnk 7y ago
  The author in this article has put it very well. >The body’s capacity to heal itself after receiving only the simulated experience of medication or therapy is well documented. But precisely because that capacity is so well documented, reflexive dismissal of the placebo effect as “fake medicine” demands scrutiny—and is now receiving it. In late 2018, The New York Times Magazine reported on a group of scientists whose research suggests that responsiveness to placebos, rather than a mere trick of the mind, can be traced to a complex series of measurable physiological reactions in the body; certain genetic makeups in patients even correlate with greater placebo response. TLDR: Please do not use placebo effect as a catch all term and as a pretext for not scrutinizing the experiences of millions of patients.
  - dvfjsdhgfv 7y ago
    It's even more interesting in this context. We already know that en expensive placebo works better than a cheap one, that elaborate placebo rituals work better than simple ones etc. This might explain that Reiki placebo is more efficient than Vitamin C placebo. But finding the underlying mechanisms of such actions and the ways the mind can influence subtle processes in the body would be a great breakthrough.
    - connectsnk 7y ago
      It might be anywhere from 1-100 years before we make this breakthrough. Most of us dont have that kind of time. As most of us on hacker news have a very scientific attitude towards life, we can atleast experiment with it. If it works for us, then good. If it doesn't, we can move ahead.
- marcus_holmes 7y ago
  Having been through psychotherapy, I can affirm it works. Spending an hour a week with someone patiently listening without judgement while I tell them everything that's been going on in my head. And sure enough, my emotional problems start to recede and I start to be more engaged with life, less depressed, and more able to function. I don't know if I'd call that placebo, though. I used to thing it was magic; I talk, and my problems vanish. Looking back on it, it was obvious. Almost exactly like explaining to a rubber duck about a coding problem and seeing the answer suddenly. Having another human patiently listen without judgement to all the crap in my head - that's powerful. Even more so when they then hear the worst stuff that we could ever possibly admit to anyone, and gently confirm that this is normal. Maybe Reiki is "just" someone touching you gently while wishing you would get well. Again I'm not sure I'd call that placebo. There's something messed up about our cultures that allows these things to work.
  - sfj 7y ago
    It never worked for me. I always got the impression the therapist was blowing smoke up my ass. I also have a hard time rectifying the idea that you can pay someone to listen to you, and at the same time try and hold the belief they really care about and like you. If they care, why are they accepting money just to listen to you? To accept the premise of psychotherapy, and what they tell you in sessions, namely that they do care, it seems you need to achieve a suspension of disbelief that I never could. I've always wondered what sort of damage that could do to you psychologically, holding that belief for a long period of time. I mean, the person who you place the most trust in, who knows you best, is also charging you an arm and a leg every week. You paid for their summer home.
    - magicalhippo 7y ago
      > If they care, why are they accepting money just to listen to you? Because they have to pay for food, pay for a roof over their head and pay down their student loan? Accepting payment does not mean they will care, but it certainly does not preclude that they may care.
      - 7y ago
- kieckerjan 7y ago
  There has been a substantial debate about this (or at least something similar) in psychotherapy since the '70s. It is called the Dodo bird veridct, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodo_bird_verdict https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodo_bird_verdict
- Erlich_Bachman 7y ago
  > Isn't all psychotherapy in a way just a placebo? Absolutely not. It is one thing to just give someone a sugar pill or a random ritual and tell them "this will make you feel better". That's placebo. (Not saying it never works, just that's the definition of placebo.) It is another thing completely to help people realize which thought patterns and which conscious focus and which memories keep them stuck in old loops. Which subconscious patterns and habits make them miserable. Which parts of their current world model are not working for them and help them actually transform the way they think about themselves, view themselves, feel themselves, the way they operate in the world on a day-to-day basis. That's psychotherapy. It is literally changing the software of the human mind. Now there might be fake psychotherapists out there who don't know what they are doing and are limited to the effects of placebo in their practices. But that does not mean that one thing is the same as the other. I can also see how there could be cases where a person receives a placebo, for some reason (the magic behind placebo) it makes them feel exceptionally well, and they use this push of energy to transform some part of their worldview on their own and so they keep some long-term effects of it. This doesn't either make one thing the same as the other, and it does not happen so often either.
  - eru 7y ago
    It's not completely clear whether there are any psychotherapies that are better than placebos. Though you have to be careful how you define your placebo. One approach would be a sugar pill. But the patient would know that this is not psychotherapy. So it doesn't work as a proper placebo. A slightly better example is a heartwarming chat with a high status individual who is not schooled in any psychotherapy. Say a random professor. See eg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodo_bird_verdict https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodo_bird_verdict
    - Erlich_Bachman 7y ago
      > It's not completely clear whether there are any psychotherapies that are better than placebos. What can be said for sure, and which was my original point, is that regardless of which one is "better", they are not the same thing at all. They are two very different distinct concepts that describe two very different existing phenomena. Incidentally, it is very clear to me, based on my life experience (and that includes using critical thinking to approach life) and experience of many other people I've met that in most cases real psychotherapy is quite effective, unlike most uses of placebo. Although there seem to be cases of placebo that are exceptionally effective too, so who knows? This is of course just an anecdote and I don't have any studies at my fingertips right now that somehow calculate and compare the relative effectiveness of the two. I would imagine that using and especially scaling placebo in effective manner is difficult because it relies on active ignorance of the user.
- fxtentacle 7y ago
  It's a way for patients to spend time with someone who cares or at the very least pretends to care. And the touching gives it a sense of intimacy. This is like catnip for lonely people. As such, this is clearly not placebo. But I find it sad that what could be a normal part of everyone's life (taking to people who care about you) is being presented as a medical intervention. Also, I find the timing of the article odd. Exactly now that hospitals are overwhelmed they propose treatments that require even more staff time.
- gerbilly 7y ago
  No, no it isn't—at all. Others have said it better than I'm going to here, but please disabuse yourself of this notion.
kd5bjo 7y ago
As far as I know, pain is fundamentally a mental phenomenon: the only way to know if someone is in pain is to ask them or observe a voluntary change in their behavior. Until this changes, the only evidence we can have that a proposed treatment reduces pain is via self-report. As far as we can tell, though, pain is a real problem that affects many people. We need to find effective treatments for it, and as much as I’d like to see more objective evidence of efficacy, I can’t think of what that evidence would actually be. Maybe we’ll eventually understand what’s going on well enough for a more objective test, but that’s not the case today. We need to make the best judgements we can on poor information as we also try to increase the quality of information we have to work with.
amelius 7y ago
Is placebo still called that way if the subject is aware of the "placebo" nature of the mechanism of action?
einpoklum 7y ago
The links are to two studies: * A Large-Scale Effectiveness Trial of Reiki for Physical and Psychological Health. / Dyer NL, Baldwin AL, Rand WL. * Effects of Reiki on Autonomic Activity Early After Acute Coronary Syndrome / Rachel S.C. Friedman, Matthew M. Burg, Pamela Miles, Forrester Lee and Rachel Lampert The first study is indeed suspicious in that the tested population are Reiki believers/supporters who are obviously motivated to declare it to have had a positive effect. The second study has a much more limited scope.

chrischen 7y ago

If a placebo works generally then it works. Isn't all psychotherapy in a way just a placebo?

klipt 7y ago
At very least, reiki practitioners care (or pretend to care) about your well-being, which must be nice for people going through stressful things like cancer, especially if they don't have a good support system from family etc. Astrologists and homeopaths might be equally effective in these cases.
connectsnk 7y ago
The author in this article has put it very well. >The body’s capacity to heal itself after receiving only the simulated experience of medication or therapy is well documented. But precisely because that capacity is so well documented, reflexive dismissal of the placebo effect as “fake medicine” demands scrutiny—and is now receiving it. In late 2018, The New York Times Magazine reported on a group of scientists whose research suggests that responsiveness to placebos, rather than a mere trick of the mind, can be traced to a complex series of measurable physiological reactions in the body; certain genetic makeups in patients even correlate with greater placebo response. TLDR: Please do not use placebo effect as a catch all term and as a pretext for not scrutinizing the experiences of millions of patients.
- dvfjsdhgfv 7y ago
  It's even more interesting in this context. We already know that en expensive placebo works better than a cheap one, that elaborate placebo rituals work better than simple ones etc. This might explain that Reiki placebo is more efficient than Vitamin C placebo. But finding the underlying mechanisms of such actions and the ways the mind can influence subtle processes in the body would be a great breakthrough.
  - connectsnk 7y ago
    It might be anywhere from 1-100 years before we make this breakthrough. Most of us dont have that kind of time. As most of us on hacker news have a very scientific attitude towards life, we can atleast experiment with it. If it works for us, then good. If it doesn't, we can move ahead.
marcus_holmes 7y ago
Having been through psychotherapy, I can affirm it works. Spending an hour a week with someone patiently listening without judgement while I tell them everything that's been going on in my head. And sure enough, my emotional problems start to recede and I start to be more engaged with life, less depressed, and more able to function. I don't know if I'd call that placebo, though. I used to thing it was magic; I talk, and my problems vanish. Looking back on it, it was obvious. Almost exactly like explaining to a rubber duck about a coding problem and seeing the answer suddenly. Having another human patiently listen without judgement to all the crap in my head - that's powerful. Even more so when they then hear the worst stuff that we could ever possibly admit to anyone, and gently confirm that this is normal. Maybe Reiki is "just" someone touching you gently while wishing you would get well. Again I'm not sure I'd call that placebo. There's something messed up about our cultures that allows these things to work.
- sfj 7y ago
  It never worked for me. I always got the impression the therapist was blowing smoke up my ass. I also have a hard time rectifying the idea that you can pay someone to listen to you, and at the same time try and hold the belief they really care about and like you. If they care, why are they accepting money just to listen to you? To accept the premise of psychotherapy, and what they tell you in sessions, namely that they do care, it seems you need to achieve a suspension of disbelief that I never could. I've always wondered what sort of damage that could do to you psychologically, holding that belief for a long period of time. I mean, the person who you place the most trust in, who knows you best, is also charging you an arm and a leg every week. You paid for their summer home.
  - magicalhippo 7y ago
    > If they care, why are they accepting money just to listen to you? Because they have to pay for food, pay for a roof over their head and pay down their student loan? Accepting payment does not mean they will care, but it certainly does not preclude that they may care.
    - 7y ago
kieckerjan 7y ago
There has been a substantial debate about this (or at least something similar) in psychotherapy since the '70s. It is called the Dodo bird veridct, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodo_bird_verdict https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodo_bird_verdict
Erlich_Bachman 7y ago
> Isn't all psychotherapy in a way just a placebo? Absolutely not. It is one thing to just give someone a sugar pill or a random ritual and tell them "this will make you feel better". That's placebo. (Not saying it never works, just that's the definition of placebo.) It is another thing completely to help people realize which thought patterns and which conscious focus and which memories keep them stuck in old loops. Which subconscious patterns and habits make them miserable. Which parts of their current world model are not working for them and help them actually transform the way they think about themselves, view themselves, feel themselves, the way they operate in the world on a day-to-day basis. That's psychotherapy. It is literally changing the software of the human mind. Now there might be fake psychotherapists out there who don't know what they are doing and are limited to the effects of placebo in their practices. But that does not mean that one thing is the same as the other. I can also see how there could be cases where a person receives a placebo, for some reason (the magic behind placebo) it makes them feel exceptionally well, and they use this push of energy to transform some part of their worldview on their own and so they keep some long-term effects of it. This doesn't either make one thing the same as the other, and it does not happen so often either.
- eru 7y ago
  It's not completely clear whether there are any psychotherapies that are better than placebos. Though you have to be careful how you define your placebo. One approach would be a sugar pill. But the patient would know that this is not psychotherapy. So it doesn't work as a proper placebo. A slightly better example is a heartwarming chat with a high status individual who is not schooled in any psychotherapy. Say a random professor. See eg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodo_bird_verdict https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodo_bird_verdict
  - Erlich_Bachman 7y ago
    > It's not completely clear whether there are any psychotherapies that are better than placebos. What can be said for sure, and which was my original point, is that regardless of which one is "better", they are not the same thing at all. They are two very different distinct concepts that describe two very different existing phenomena. Incidentally, it is very clear to me, based on my life experience (and that includes using critical thinking to approach life) and experience of many other people I've met that in most cases real psychotherapy is quite effective, unlike most uses of placebo. Although there seem to be cases of placebo that are exceptionally effective too, so who knows? This is of course just an anecdote and I don't have any studies at my fingertips right now that somehow calculate and compare the relative effectiveness of the two. I would imagine that using and especially scaling placebo in effective manner is difficult because it relies on active ignorance of the user.
fxtentacle 7y ago
It's a way for patients to spend time with someone who cares or at the very least pretends to care. And the touching gives it a sense of intimacy. This is like catnip for lonely people. As such, this is clearly not placebo. But I find it sad that what could be a normal part of everyone's life (taking to people who care about you) is being presented as a medical intervention. Also, I find the timing of the article odd. Exactly now that hospitals are overwhelmed they propose treatments that require even more staff time.
gerbilly 7y ago
No, no it isn't—at all. Others have said it better than I'm going to here, but please disabuse yourself of this notion.

kd5bjo 7y ago

As far as I know, pain is fundamentally a mental phenomenon: the only way to know if someone is in pain is to ask them or observe a voluntary change in their behavior. Until this changes, the only evidence we can have that a proposed treatment reduces pain is via self-report. As far as we can tell, though, pain is a real problem that affects many people. We need to find effective treatments for it, and as much as I’d like to see more objective evidence of efficacy, I can’t think of what that evidence would actually be. Maybe we’ll eventually understand what’s going on well enough for a more objective test, but that’s not the case today. We need to make the best judgements we can on poor information as we also try to increase the quality of information we have to work with.

amelius 7y ago

Is placebo still called that way if the subject is aware of the "placebo" nature of the mechanism of action?

einpoklum 7y ago

The links are to two studies: * A Large-Scale Effectiveness Trial of Reiki for Physical and Psychological Health. / Dyer NL, Baldwin AL, Rand WL. * Effects of Reiki on Autonomic Activity Early After Acute Coronary Syndrome / Rachel S.C. Friedman, Matthew M. Burg, Pamela Miles, Forrester Lee and Rachel Lampert The first study is indeed suspicious in that the tested population are Reiki believers/supporters who are obviously motivated to declare it to have had a positive effect. The second study has a much more limited scope.