Wonder cure:" hand healing"

[sanctus]

I'm actually not sure if the title is the proper term for what I mean in english.

What I mean is the people which get cured by some "doctor" who lays his hand on the part of the body that aches and then the person feels better.

 

I only heard about this, but never saw it. So my questions are:does it really exist?If yes, is it only self-suggestion?What are the explications of the phenomena (the pseudo and scintific ones)?

[gpdone]

Congrats for being the first to post a thread in this new and likely exciting and useful forum.

 

As to this topic...many claims exist and even claims that reputable studies have been done that show significant results for prayer and the 'laying on of hands'. I must say claims because I have never found them myself and therfore cannot post any links to them. I doubt most of the accounts but believe there is enough credible stuff to warrent investagation. I myself can see a physical mechanism for some benifit to a person suffering from a fever in that one or better yet many sets of human hands will act as a heat sink..pumping away heat from a person with an elevated temp. Old folks (naked for best effect) were put in bed with babies with high fever as a cure or treatment, This I have heard from my Swedish Grandfather and seen similar elseware in folk remedie disscussions.

 

All for now,

 

Lee

[Tormod]

I think the placebo effect is the only thing working here.

 

Of course, a lot of people really need physical contact, so just being attended by a therapist may be enough to cure them of their ills.

[TINNY]

Yup, its the placebo effect alright. The psychological theory says that 'it's all in your mind'. Doctors even sometimes administer fake medicine such as starch pills and sugar pills.

 

Here's something interesting from skepdic.com:

Doctors in one study successfully eliminated warts by painting them with a brightly colored, inert dye and promising patients the warts would be gone when the color wore off. In a study of asthmatics, researchers found that they could produce dilation of the airways by simply telling people they were inhaling a bronchiodilator, even when they weren't. Patients suffering pain after wisdom-tooth extraction got just as much relief from a fake application of ultrasound as from a real one, so long as both patient and therapist thought the machine was on. Fifty-two percent of the colitis patients treated with placebo in 11 different trials reported feeling better -- and 50 percent of the inflamed intestines actually looked better when assessed with a sigmoidoscope ("The Placebo Prescription" by Margaret Talbot, New York Times Magazine, January 9, 2000)

[Tormod]

Tinny quoting skepdic.com! Freethinker will be shocked. :wink:

[sanctus]

Congrats for being the first to post a thread in this new and likely exciting and useful forum.

 

 

Thanks, I never really understood what was classified under "medical science", then somebody told me and so I eventually could ask something I heard very often.

 

What I would like to believe is that it works and not for placebo effect, but it's hard there seems to be no evidence and so I find myself wanting to believe in something I can't. Maybe a little evidence exists, Lee's theory of passing the heat I already felt it, I mean if it hurts you somewhere and somebody lays gently hi/her hand on it, it makes feel better, but does it cure?

[Freethinker]

Tinny quoting skepdic.com! Freethinker will be shocked. :wink:

Osmosis?

[Freethinker]

"Therapeutic Touch". The idea that there is some metaphysical ability to heal based on some energy force yet to be discovered! And it was debunked by a 9 yr old girl in her 3rd grade Science Fair project!

 

http://www.positiveatheism.org/writ/emily.htm

 

SHe did a simple experiment in which she took practicioners of "Therapeutic Touch" and set up a test where they would guess whether there was human flesh under their hands when they could not get any visual clues. The "Therapeutic Touch" claiments were sure they could detect this "power" or energy and very willing to be tested.

 

The premise being that if there was this detectable directable energy, the practicioner cpould physically detect the presence of the human flesh in proximitly. The tested subjects failed completely to show the ability to detect whether they had their hands over empty space or a human body.

[pgrmdave]

If it can create such a strong placebo effect that it works, doesn't it work?

[pgrmdave]

Whether or not there is evidence against a true healing effect, it does provide people with hope, which helps the body heal itself.

[Tormod]

Whether or not there is evidence against a true healing effect, it does provide people with hope, which helps the body heal itself.

The problem is that hope is not guaranteed to heal anyone. People who stop seeing their doctor because they think a healer can cure their cancer face a much larger risk of dying. Healing is not a scientific venue.

[Tormod]

Of course, medicine is not guaranteed to heal anyone, either - but there is a difference between taking monitored medication and getting professional advice on one hand and seeing someone who claims to have healing powers (which they don't).

[pgrmdave]

I agree, to abandon medical science for something like that is a dangerous move, but to supplement it is usually beneficial, so long as your doctor knows any "supplements" you are using.

[sanctus]

You both seem to believe that a thing that is not (yet?) understandable scientifically, doesn't work. Maybe this applies to the hand healing, but you can't generalize it. For example, my grandfather had something serious with the "reins" (I don't think it's english, it's meant to be the two organs on the back in which you can get stones if you go in motorbike not very well dressed), the doctors of the accepted scientiphic medcine, said there was no hope. Well, he went to the antrposphs and kept living with no problems for other 20 years or so and eventually dies of something else.

[pgrmdave]

You both seem to believe that a thing that is not (yet?) understandable scientifically, doesn't work.

 

I believe that if it works but is not understancable scientifically, then it needs to be used with caution. While modern medicine is not without its side effects, at least they have been studied and documented more. But I agree with you that some not understood cures may work. In just the past decade or so, acupuncture gained respect when doctors actually started to test it. For some reason, western medicine is slow to accept what it does not understand.

[sanctus]

For some reason, western medicine is slow to accept what it does not understand.

 

 

What is very sad, but contributes to the fact that western medicine is better documented.

[TINNY]

there is a difference between western medicine and Western medicine. :)