Joe Dispenza: Healing and the Placebo effect
OMTimes: Placebo is Latin for: “I shall please”. In You are the Placebo you describe a study with Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) patients and that the placebo relieves symptoms. Is the placebo effect more too temporarily “I shall please” than to benefit a person long term?
Joe Dispenza: I think it happens on different levels. There are plenty of people where the placebo response worked really well, like with the people who got a fake knee surgery as I describe in my book. After 2 – 8 years they’re still walking around with full range of motion in their knee and no pain.
In certain percentages of people like for example the IBS in patients, they knew full well that they were getting the placebo and at the same time, even they knew that they were getting the placebo, they still got better so there’s an element where people actually want to get better. So when we talk about ‘to please’ what we are really saying is, to create a greater sense of well-being, and the sense of well-being is a spectrum, because with some people the pain levels may have gone away, which means they are creating their own pharmacy of chemicals or anti-inflammatory or morphine-like substances that are reducing their pain. At the other end of the spectrum, there are people that are actually causing arteries to heal and genes to be switched on because they accept, believe and surrender to the idea, without analysis, to a greater degree. I think there’s a spectrum of change that takes place for each individual.
