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Can positivity cure any disease? (blogpost)

CFSTheBear

Senior Member
Messages
166
Haven't read the entire piece as it's quite the eyeful but...has anyone bar new age healers etc ever actually said that positivity can cure illnesses? Help, maybe. But outside of a few people wanting to make a quick buck from this sort of thinking I feel like it's a bit of a straw man.
 

lauluce

as long as you manage to stay alive, there's hope
Messages
591
Location
argentina
Haven't read the entire piece as it's quite the eyeful but...has anyone bar new age healers etc ever actually said that positivity can cure illnesses? Help, maybe. But outside of a few people wanting to make a quick buck from this sort of thinking I feel like it's a bit of a straw man.
well, not "cure", but many people believe that not believing that a said treatment (eg: some drug) will help you, could cause said treament to FAIL, which is totally bogus. When one of my family members sugested that a treatment was not helping me because I didn´t believe in it, I just said "if you don't believe a cianide pill will kill you, would you survive taking it?"
 

Alvin2

The good news is patients don't die the bad news..
Messages
2,996
Denying reality is never a viable long term strategy.
well put, you must be reading my thoughts :woot:
it works well short term, and politicians have turned it into a viable strategy employing scapegoats to explain the failure of lies to pan out. This has many parallels with PACE...
 

Mel9

Senior Member
Messages
995
Location
NSW Australia
Positivity helps patients reject negativity by others (eg doctors 'there is nothing wrong with you' ) and search (eg in PR) for supplements (eg CoQ10, vit B etc) that might help alleviate some symptoms, even if they are not an actual cure.

Positivity allows us to accept that we are ill and need to Pace ourselves so that we have a little energy left over for the occasional pleasures of life: being with our loved ones, spending time in nature, reading a book.

Positivity also tells me to be grateful for what I have because there are so many severely ill me cfs patients who never have any 'energy left over'
 

sarah darwins

Senior Member
Messages
2,508
Location
Cornwall, UK
On a TV programme a while ago, I heard a doctor mention as a throwaway comment that "they've found that laughter improves your immune system."

I've heard this a lot — I'm sure we all have. Does anyone know if it has a credible scientific foundation?
 

alex3619

Senior Member
Messages
13,810
Location
Logan, Queensland, Australia
Haven't read the entire piece as it's quite the eyeful but...has anyone bar new age healers etc ever actually said that positivity can cure illnesses? Help, maybe. But outside of a few people wanting to make a quick buck from this sort of thinking I feel like it's a bit of a straw man.
There are huge industries based on this "straw man". This includes NLP based programs and CBT based programs. In the UK there are government clinics that follow this line. Its not a straw man argument. It is an argument about a subset of positive thinking advocates.
 

alex3619

Senior Member
Messages
13,810
Location
Logan, Queensland, Australia
When one of my family members sugested that a treatment was not helping me because I didn´t believe in it, I just said "if you don't believe a cianide pill will kill you, would you survive taking it?"
:rofl:

In Evidence Based Medicine the argument was raised that that sometimes answers are just so obvious you don't need an RCT. Otherwise we should be running randomised controlled trials on the efficacy of parachutes from high altitude. Who wants to sign up?
 

sarah darwins

Senior Member
Messages
2,508
Location
Cornwall, UK
Otherwise we should be running randomised controlled trials on the efficacy of parachutes from high altitude. Who wants to sign up?

LOL. Not me, but I can think of a few people to nominate.

Laughter is in the same category. In hospitals they have entertainment systems for people who are dying. Its about coping. So is CBT.

The claim I heard recently about laughter and immunity was from Mirriam Stoppard in the second series of The Real Marigold Hotel, out in India. What interested me was that in the same programme she was banging on about the importance of evidence in medicine and how she couldn't recommend any treatment for which there was no evidence. Then she said "They've found that laughter improves your immunity", as though it were beyond dispute (and yes, she used the 'they' authority reference).

I thought it interesting that a GP (OK, for years a TV doctor but still a trained doctor) with an avowed commitment to evidence-based medicine, should seemingly be far less fastidious when it comes to anything involving the mind/body relationship. Maybe this is why doctors have been so willing to let BPS theories go unchallenged: anything involving the psyche seems to make even EBM devotees go a bit flakey.