John Sarno's book "Healing Back Pain" saved me from truly agonizing torture and made me functional again in just a few hours, though I went to it with extreme skepticism. It's great to see formal research being done on this approach.
I think a balance is in order. It's good to explore things that don't have conclusive evidence with an open mind while maintaining a degree of healthy scepticism. If it improves subjective well-being then it works for all practical purposes. Whether that's all placebo doesn't even matter at that point.
Rigorous epistemology != a good approach to self-help.
And the subjective well being point isn't so simple as well. If there really is a physical problem the placebo isn't a treatment but masks symptoms, which is counter-productive long term. Plenty of people pour substantial money into alternative medicine that doesn't address their illnesses because they feel subjectively better for a while.
But if something sounds sort-of plausible, has some tentative but low quality evidence, and it's low cost and low risk, and it's not going to distract you from more proven treatments, then just try it out and see if it works. A small handful of people won't even go that far because of dogmatically orthodox thinking, and those are the people I'm addressing.
> To assume that someone can solve a debilitating problem that affects millions in hours by selling you a book is probably in 99% of cases a scam.
If it's psychosomatic pain, there's legitimate scope for a self-help book to actually improve things for them. Also why wouldn't we expect practitioners who have been hands on with clients for 20 years to not have picked up some useful tricks that didn't make it into peer reviewed studies? I feel like your statement here is too heavy on the skepticism, even though you're right that there are loads of books that are quackery. There can be learned wisdom built up through practice that isn't peer reviewed.
The back surgeon interviewed patients long after back surgery. They reported some help, but some pain / discomfort remained. He looked at Xrays of painful vs pain-free, & found Xrays looked very similar. That's when he started teaching 'pain management'.
IMHO teaching 'pain management' would be helpful for all. Could prevent some surgeries, but even if they got corrective surgery, the self-help management could still prove useful.
You say "crystal healing doesn't work and people shouldn't try it." Why not? Aren't you being closed-minded? How is crystal healing any worse than any other scientifically unsupported remedy?
- The existing evidence, although positive, may be low quality, or preliminary.
- The treatment is advanced by some otherwise legitimate practitioners, even if it isn't consensus mainstream.
- The treatment has been used safely in traditional medicine for a long time, and simply hasn't been studied yet in a scientific framework.
- The promoters aren't transparent crackpots, and don't use empty buzzwords like "quantum".
- Any proposed mechanisms at least make some basic sense and don't break the basic principles of physics and biology, and aren't clear woo.
What I am saying is that if a treatment ticks some of the above boxes and is safe, then give it a go. They're less likely to work, but the expected value is high because the costs are low.
Crystal healing ticks none of these boxes and therefore can be discarded with more confidence, since the expected value is low, even though it's true we can't be absolutely certain that it doesn't work.
Interestingly, Carl Sagan, in his book The Demon Haunted World, discusses physical ailments arising purely from the brain and in passing points out that there are reasons to believe back pain is one of them.
The book is a fantastic read, because for some reason many people in the pro-skeptic movement recommend the book, despite the fact that quite a bit of the book is critical of skeptics!
http://www.rsi.deas.harvard.edu
It took work but it literally cured me. Went on to use the same techniques for back pain and haven’t had that in many years.
TIL! This is the opposite of what I’ve been doing to date.
Same with my back pain and lumbar support. Once the lumbar support gave me relief, I could easily tell which chairs/couches were terrible for the back as the bad ones would give instant pain.
The pain is due to TMS, not to a structural abnormality
The direct reason for the pain is mild oxygen deprivation
TMS is a harmless condition caused by my repressed emotions
The principal emotion is my repressed ANGER
TMS exists only to distract my attentions from the emotions
Since my back (replace with whatever pain you’ve got) is basically normal there is nothing to fear
Therefore, physical activity is not dangerous
And I MUST resume all normal physical activity
I will not be concerned or intimidated by the pain
I will shift my attention from pain to the emotional issues
I intend to be in control-NOT my subconscious mind
I must think Psychological at all times, NOT physical.
If I remember correctly the solution was basically to learn about that and acknowledge it and do exercises like tell your mind/body thank you for looking out for me. It I don’t need that. Go to psychotherapy and other stuff.
I’m definitely a partial believer in the ideas. Read about it decided to stop going to chiropractors after doing so for over a decade due to often severe neck and back pain and now 2 years later I am virtually neck and back pain free. While doing nothing, in fact while eating worse, not exercising , being stressed out, bad posture etc. I just decided that it was psychosomatic and it eventually went away.