Anyone mentions the word "cleanse" to me, they better be talking about soap.
How Would You Spend $1T a year?
- Thread starter Triskelion
- Start date
While I generally agree with most of what's been said about natural treatments here, I would make an exception here for hypnosis, massage, and other treatment modalities that genuinely reduce stress. Untreated stress anxieties do lead to physical ailments such as IBS and heart conditions; while anxieties like phobias cause dysfunctional behavior and interfere with people's lives. Problem behavioral conditions certainly can benefit from psychotherapy; and of course clinical psychology can deal with the diagnosis and treatment of serious neurological disorders that manifest through behavior rather than X Rays and blood tests.
And before you dismiss this post, you'll first have to dismiss the APA and AMA, which validate hypnosis as a mainstream medical treatment (if not widely understood by prospective clients). This can also cross over into the realm of behavior modification and emotional psychotherapy. It's not easy, because it asks you to examine your own stress responses to certain stimuli (perhaps not always suitable stimuli), and make a decision to alter the conditioned response through directed effort (conscious-directly and subconscious-indirectly).
You may not consider, for example, self-destructive behavior a real medical condition, but if someone's responses to anxieties are self-destructive, it's a real problem with real solutions. (IE, a dog bit you as a child and now you are terrified of all dogs all the time, and it's ruining your job as an airport security guard). And in this case, I would respectfully caution against the automated use of chemical pills as a solution, where a more natural treatment is available - one without side effects or creating additional strains with other medications, etc. IE, if you can lose weight with diet and exercise, or a pill - personally I think a pill is the wrong choice here, when clearly the lifestyle is the issue. I know some medical pros whose first response to anything and everything is "throw a pill at it." Well OK, but that is frankly, willful ignorance of all the possible causes, let alone treatment options.
So I guess what I'm saying is, like the good people in this thread - DO YOUR HOMEWORK. People often dismiss things that are hard to understand - like modern medicine or technology or foreign countries.
(I don't personally subscribe to the acupuncture model - but I think for a stress condition, it is possible to have genuine medical, therapeutic value in slowing you down and being pampered before you go nuts. This isn't placebo, it is medical relief of measurable neurological strain).
And I will say one more thing: we don't know everything there is to know about medicine. There is more to learn, especially regarding psychoneuroimmunology. The brain is the most complex thing in the known universe, responsible for the most complex problem in the known universe - human social behavior.
And before you dismiss this post, you'll first have to dismiss the APA and AMA, which validate hypnosis as a mainstream medical treatment (if not widely understood by prospective clients). This can also cross over into the realm of behavior modification and emotional psychotherapy. It's not easy, because it asks you to examine your own stress responses to certain stimuli (perhaps not always suitable stimuli), and make a decision to alter the conditioned response through directed effort (conscious-directly and subconscious-indirectly).
You may not consider, for example, self-destructive behavior a real medical condition, but if someone's responses to anxieties are self-destructive, it's a real problem with real solutions. (IE, a dog bit you as a child and now you are terrified of all dogs all the time, and it's ruining your job as an airport security guard). And in this case, I would respectfully caution against the automated use of chemical pills as a solution, where a more natural treatment is available - one without side effects or creating additional strains with other medications, etc. IE, if you can lose weight with diet and exercise, or a pill - personally I think a pill is the wrong choice here, when clearly the lifestyle is the issue. I know some medical pros whose first response to anything and everything is "throw a pill at it." Well OK, but that is frankly, willful ignorance of all the possible causes, let alone treatment options.
So I guess what I'm saying is, like the good people in this thread - DO YOUR HOMEWORK. People often dismiss things that are hard to understand - like modern medicine or technology or foreign countries.
(I don't personally subscribe to the acupuncture model - but I think for a stress condition, it is possible to have genuine medical, therapeutic value in slowing you down and being pampered before you go nuts. This isn't placebo, it is medical relief of measurable neurological strain).
And I will say one more thing: we don't know everything there is to know about medicine. There is more to learn, especially regarding psychoneuroimmunology. The brain is the most complex thing in the known universe, responsible for the most complex problem in the known universe - human social behavior.
@Triskelion , I for one have never heard of massage being an alternative medical treatment. I get medical massage as part of my PT. And hypnosis is a great relaxation technique! The problem is when people believe they can retrieve suppressed memories or visit past lives or do other impossible things using it.
I actually agree with everything you said, except the bit about acupuncture. That's been proved not to work. It was definitely an interesting case, because unlike homeopathy or reiki, it was plausible that it could be doing something, and also because it was really difficult to test, because how do you do a properly blinded acupuncture study? How do you get an acupuncturist to not know whether or not they are actually performing acupuncture? I followed this one for a few years because I was really interested in it!
In a really well designed study they solved the blinding problem like this: They had one group receive sham acupuncture (real needles but put in random places that had nothing to do with acupuncture philosophy). They then had two groups receive blinded treatment from real acupuncturists. They rigged it so the acupuncture needles were encased in a little device and the acupuncturist would press a trigger that would either insert a needle or just poke the patient gently with a toothpick, thereby properly blinding the study. The control group received therapeutic massage. This study, as well as other well designed studies of acupuncture show no effect beyond placebo.
So does it have the real, medical, valuable benefit of calming you? Of course! The placebo effect is definitely a real thing. It really does calm you. It really can reduce pain. But that goes back to the ethical problem I brought up in my first post on the subject of using fake treatments for real conditions, back to the asthma study I brought up; no harm no foul if people are seeing their acupuncturists for stress relief or a back ache. But when both provider and patient believe acupuncture can treat more than that, diseases that it cannot treat, that's where you have a problem. Better to recognize it as the snake oil it is, and send the patients to get a medical massage. Same benefit, without the false hope that it will also help "strengthen their immune systems" and fight their cancer or whatever.
And don't think for a second I dismiss the importance of mental health...my academic background is in neuropsychology! However, particularly in the area of clinical psychology, the field is rife with terrible research (this is one of the reasons I actually shifted my focus in school from social psych to neurology, I couldn't stomach the terrible research standards). Don't get me wrong, there is also a lot of great research and excellent practices. Like you said, hypnosis is a great stress-reducer, it can be so effective that it is used to treat patients who are allergic to anesthesia and have to have surgery. Most psychotherapy techniques are bogus, but cognitive behavioral continually proves effective in studies with good methodology. Mindfulness is also looking positive as a therapy modality, but it's too early to tell.
This is a fantastic article (again, from one of my favorite go-to resources, Science-Based Medicine) about the problems in the field.
*For disclosure, I don't work in the field, rather in the related field of education, but have my MSci IPN and BSPsy and try to keep up with the research.
I actually agree with everything you said, except the bit about acupuncture. That's been proved not to work. It was definitely an interesting case, because unlike homeopathy or reiki, it was plausible that it could be doing something, and also because it was really difficult to test, because how do you do a properly blinded acupuncture study? How do you get an acupuncturist to not know whether or not they are actually performing acupuncture? I followed this one for a few years because I was really interested in it!
In a really well designed study they solved the blinding problem like this: They had one group receive sham acupuncture (real needles but put in random places that had nothing to do with acupuncture philosophy). They then had two groups receive blinded treatment from real acupuncturists. They rigged it so the acupuncture needles were encased in a little device and the acupuncturist would press a trigger that would either insert a needle or just poke the patient gently with a toothpick, thereby properly blinding the study. The control group received therapeutic massage. This study, as well as other well designed studies of acupuncture show no effect beyond placebo.
So does it have the real, medical, valuable benefit of calming you? Of course! The placebo effect is definitely a real thing. It really does calm you. It really can reduce pain. But that goes back to the ethical problem I brought up in my first post on the subject of using fake treatments for real conditions, back to the asthma study I brought up; no harm no foul if people are seeing their acupuncturists for stress relief or a back ache. But when both provider and patient believe acupuncture can treat more than that, diseases that it cannot treat, that's where you have a problem. Better to recognize it as the snake oil it is, and send the patients to get a medical massage. Same benefit, without the false hope that it will also help "strengthen their immune systems" and fight their cancer or whatever.
And don't think for a second I dismiss the importance of mental health...my academic background is in neuropsychology! However, particularly in the area of clinical psychology, the field is rife with terrible research (this is one of the reasons I actually shifted my focus in school from social psych to neurology, I couldn't stomach the terrible research standards). Don't get me wrong, there is also a lot of great research and excellent practices. Like you said, hypnosis is a great stress-reducer, it can be so effective that it is used to treat patients who are allergic to anesthesia and have to have surgery. Most psychotherapy techniques are bogus, but cognitive behavioral continually proves effective in studies with good methodology. Mindfulness is also looking positive as a therapy modality, but it's too early to tell.
This is a fantastic article (again, from one of my favorite go-to resources, Science-Based Medicine) about the problems in the field.
*For disclosure, I don't work in the field, rather in the related field of education, but have my MSci IPN and BSPsy and try to keep up with the research.
Research towards a cyborg body or my own space program. My cat and I will conquer space.
That's a fair point - and as someone who doesn't give a crap about "buying organic" (I'm hoping the synthetics and GMOs will give me superpowers, frankly
), I freely admit that I forgot that there are "organic pesticides" that are considered acceptable for something still labeled as "organic". Because to me, that seems like some serious BS, really.Rest assured that I'm not really primarily against Monsanto for that, though, anyway - I just don't like the idea of *anyone* owning patterns in the building blocks of life. GMOs should all be open source and freely distributable, IMO.
We (my cousins and I) used to make this stuff called "pipe cleaner" at my grandma's house - about an inch of lemon juice extract in the cup, five or six teaspoons of sugar, then fill with water, mix and drink. Before long, you'd be running for the bathroom to empty yourself. Not sure it "flushed out toxins", though.
Ew. 
@USS Triumphant , Monsanto is shitty for pretty much every reason except their science. I agree with you regarding the fundamental issue of patenting living things. However, in their defense (though they don't deserve much defense, because, business practice and ethics-wise they are, indeed, craptastic), the stories about them suing farmers for seeds blowing onto their fields are completely bogus.
If I "HAD" to spend 1t every year ... I would get sick and die.
that is just like way way too much work to buy something then use it..
so If possible I would give back the money as I would not want it... (at all)
I would hope that I could ignore the whole incident and such that I could get thru such turmoil without dying... though I probably would die just by knowing I had that money somewhere as for me it does more then just burn holes in my pockets It is totally toxic for me...
peace sauce is cheep lets try to give everyone some?
that is just like way way too much work to buy something then use it..
so If possible I would give back the money as I would not want it... (at all)
I would hope that I could ignore the whole incident and such that I could get thru such turmoil without dying... though I probably would die just by knowing I had that money somewhere as for me it does more then just burn holes in my pockets It is totally toxic for me...
peace sauce is cheep lets try to give everyone some?
@ thestrangequark, First of all, to quote something you may have heard before, "A point in every direction is the same as no point at all." So I agree with about the benefits of the placebo effect as well as the ethical violation of marketing acupuncture as a thing. My experience with acupuncture is completely ancillary to other things so I can easily defer to your take on it and tend to agree. Here in Shanghai, Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) is a fascinating parade of snake oil. As a matter of fact, someone recently just tried selling me actual snake oil. Ha ha.
I do, though, have direct experience with the concept of Qi/Chi/Ki, especially from martial arts training. And I can tell you that this concept is like a blend of the four humours of ancient medicine with some Holy Spirit thrown in - but in fighting, it is absolutely a tangible sensation. Not a force, a sensation.
And here is the rub - that doesn't make it real. But the sensation itself informs movement, so its perception has concrete value - especially when you have to kick the ass of a stack of bricks without breaking your own bones. So I can understand how it would come to be formalized in TCM, et al, and thrive in an environment of both superstition and intuition. I guess my point is, the perception also has value to the patient. (But I feel a lot better understanding cognition than taking everything my senses tell me at face value). Of course, here in China it is all taken as gospel but that's more of the cult effect than direct experience.
Along with my psych degree, I am a certified in medical hypnotism and understand the therapeutic value of the practice (and the implications of bias). Everything you say about it is spot on. Hypnosis is an unregulated activity, so it gets woven into metaphysical frameworks as well as theatrical uses. Stripping all that away for the moment, anxiety-wise, it is pretty good at accomplishing what it sets out to do, with even faster results for many cases than REBT/psychotherapy, etc, but of course, it depends on the scope, goals and presenting conditions. I even wrote a book about it once.
But yeah, essentially when you start getting into past life regression and metaphysical/shamanistic applications, you're blurring its medical value and making an already esoteric practice even less accessible to the average person. (It's an uphill sell). My book concluded that it was still an ethical practice to provide hypnosis to patients seeking their own experiences, provided you differentiate the scopes and frame your scope of practice clearly. I really wanted to clarify that line between Medical hypnosis and its Metaphysical or Theatrical effects. Like those websites claiming it can cure anything from baldness to prosperity.
Of course, it's poor marketing to cross the scopes. But if you really wanted to provide the treatment to someone who would misinterpret its effects - you could and still remain ethical with the proper induction communication - and solid marketing of the medical scope. People usually need to be educated on the treatment before they try it, so it's not a good idea to make those long lists of magic benefits. The shorter list of medical benefits is substantiated, though.
BTW I tried your link but it's blocked in China. We wouldn't want to see behind the curtain....
Hey, neuropsychology? That's no easy track! Like you, my interest is mostly academic, as in, teaching psychology. And hypnotizing my students, of course....
Ah, here's one thing I would do with the $1T budget: add a course in Bias to every school curriculum.
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^Dude, we are so on the same track. Isn't it fun when you find someone who shares your interests and education but who has come at it from a different background? But yeah, I mostly stick to academic, and I've decided Masters is as far as I'm gonna go (at least for now). What I'm really good at is taking complex things and making them simple, so I've got my ideal job now: writing science (primarily, though sometimes math and social studies, if I know the content) books and lesson plans for kids.
I'd write more right now but I'm worn out from other stuff in life. Mostly, it's a bummer those links are blocked...is it all of them? Science-Based Medicine is a great blog written by four doctors (I think one or two may be retired), and mainly focuses on critical thinking in health and medicine. The other was a rationalwiki link. I suspect that was the blocked one if not all of them.
As well as courses in bias (all critical thinking and logical fallacies would be nice), I think statistics should be a required high school course. Not really for the math aspect, but more the practice and theory -- personally, I'm not very good at the math. I can do it, but I'm extremely slow, and, just suck. But understanding what statistics mean, how they are created, how they can be both very good at giving us information but also very powerful at giving us wrong information, people need to know this. The whole Mark Twain, "lies, damn lies, and statistics," aspect.
I'd write more right now but I'm worn out from other stuff in life. Mostly, it's a bummer those links are blocked...is it all of them? Science-Based Medicine is a great blog written by four doctors (I think one or two may be retired), and mainly focuses on critical thinking in health and medicine. The other was a rationalwiki link. I suspect that was the blocked one if not all of them.
As well as courses in bias (all critical thinking and logical fallacies would be nice), I think statistics should be a required high school course. Not really for the math aspect, but more the practice and theory -- personally, I'm not very good at the math. I can do it, but I'm extremely slow, and, just suck. But understanding what statistics mean, how they are created, how they can be both very good at giving us information but also very powerful at giving us wrong information, people need to know this. The whole Mark Twain, "lies, damn lies, and statistics," aspect.
^Uh... that is exactly what I said, they are dicks, but their dickishness is to do with corporate and business ethics, and is a separate thing from the science of GMO.
That was meant to be supportive, not contradictory. Whups.
I would buy Saudi Arabia
