A Psychiatrist Examines Fears of Healing
Despite this impressive body of evidence, healing continues to be ignored by conventional medicine. Part two of a paper by Daniel J. Benor, MD.
Studies in which the left brain was engaged (and presumably distracted) with a task during psi testing seem to suggest that psi may be a right-brain phenomenon (Broughton, 1976; Maher, Peratsakis & Schmeidler, 1979). The significant effects were found in males. This is consistent with my hypothesis that left-brain-dominant persons would have more difficulty appreciating psi phenomena.
Studies of C. Maxwell Cade and Geoffrey Blundell with the Mind Mirror (Cade and Coxhead, 1979; Blundell, 1990) show that experienced healers, advanced mediators and yogic adepts have balanced right and left brainwave patterns.
Healing may therefore involve either the right brain alone or the right brain in balance with the left. In either' ease, the predominantly left-brain linear thinking person will be uncomfortable with healing.
13.The lack of replicability of healing phenomena in experiments, and their irregular occurrence in clinical healing settings has been used as a reason to question their existence. In the physical and social sciences we presume we understand an aspect of nature when we are able to manipulate it so as to produce the same results repeatably and predictably under given circumstances.
Healers have not been able to produce results with reliable consistency. Effects are observed in some healing treatments but not in others, with little apparent regularity in the patterns of occurrences. The same healer might succeed a number of times and fail a number of times and we have not isolated the critical variables which can explain -- much less predict -- when healing will occur or not. Thus the physical scientists claim that healing phenomena are probably due to chance variations in the disease, 'spontaneous remissions' or other, unaccounted factors rather than results of healers' interventions.
Healers claim that skeptical observers may inhibit the effectiveness of their treatments. Skeptics derisively object that healers are evading scrutiny with such hedges.
Though patterns of psi performance in the laboratory have been observed, these may have been discounted as evidence for psi because they do not occur predictably. It is not uncommon to find that the first few trials in a series produce positive results, while subsequent trials produce chance results,
Unusual patterns have been found in areas of conventional science as well (Collins, 1985). New processes for crystallization, developed in a particular laboratory, may be impossible to replicate in other laboratories -- until the originator of the process visits personally to demonstrate how to do it. It may be that beliefs and/or disbeliefs of the experimenters facilitate or block the reactions.
It may be found that morphogenetic fields must be built in order to achieve this (Sheldrake, 1988).
I believe with Bernie Siegel (1987) that "...all healing is scientific. The problem is science's inability to measure or document what occurs." The observed lawfulness of healing requires careful study and clarification on its own terms. My guess is that shifting factors of boredom, beliefs and needs of participants shape the results into these observed patterns, along with numerous external factors.
14. Healing has laws which differ from those of other sciences. Procrustean demands are made of researchers of healing. It is ludicrous than, scientists from other fields should suggest that their rules for evidence should be applied in healing -- just because in their owns fields these are the rules that have helped to organize data into comprehensible and predictable units and gestalts. It would certainly he nicer, neater and less complicated if this worked. The fact that it does not work does not mean that healing does not exist or merely represents the esoteric fantasy systems of credulous people.
Researcher's have insisted, for instance, that some clinical studies must provide a 'standard dose' of healing, i.e. that healing be applied for a uniform length of time for each healee. It is assumed that giving healing is like providing a dose of medicine or of electrical current. Healers point out that their treatments are administered. intuitively, adjusted by clairsentient perceptions in the unconscious mind of the healer to the needs of each individual healee. Healers cannot say why the length of time required varies between healees and even from session to session for the same healee with the same healer (Quinn, 1989a). Though some studies with standard time-dose of healing have produced positive results (Heidt, 1981; Keller & Bzdek, 1986; Quinn, 1984), others have not (Quinn, 1989h; Schlitz & Braud, 1985).
In experiments of chemistry or nuclear physics, the results are usually given in rates of reaction and percentages of probability of occurrence, covering very large numbers of molecules or particles. If a nuclear physicist is asked about a single particle he is often in the same position as a healing researcher and cannot predict with certainty whether that particular particle will or will not act in a particular way. Even worse, there are aspects of physics which cannot he defined at all. An electron can be defined either in terms of its momentum but not its position; or in terms of its position, in which case its momentum becomes unknown (Capra, 1975). We simply do not apply classical physics rules to particle physics phenomena. As alien as this is to our sensory reality, we have come to accept that this is the way things are.
Since healing does not conform even statistically in regularly repeatable fashion, skeptics argue that claims for healing efficacy must represent chance variations rather than response to healing treatments.
The time has come to accept that healing is the way it is. It appears to be influenced by multiple factors -- so many, in fact, that it is virtually impossible to establish a repeatable experiment in which all would occur in the same combination more than once (Benor, 1993). As it is difficult to control any one of these, much less all of them in concert, it is little wonder that only approximately equivalent t results have been obtained in experiments over numbers of trials.
We will have to be content with out human limitations and settle for approximate results, measured in probabilities over large numbers of trials. No apologies are needed. These are the limitations of healing.
Hopefully, further research will help establish some minimal laws of healing. I suspect that one of them will be that we cannot know all of them in a given material world.
15. Healing has been practiced in religious settings which emphasize faith and denigrate healing outside of their belief system. Many have presumed that faith is a requisite for positive results in healing. Western science sees itself as weaned from the murky, magical thinking of mystical beliefs. Healing is rejected because science sees itself as dealing with facts, not faith. It overlooks that it, too, bases its beliefs on ultimately untestable axioms which are as questionable as any other.
It is fascinating that quantum physics is returning us through scientific experimentation and theories to awareness which mystics have reported through the ages (Capra, 1975).
16. We tend to be self-satisfied in our ignorance. As the economically dominant world culture, the West has presumed it possesses a more valid grasp on reality than the rest of the world. People forget that "All information is subjective: The word "fact" is merely another statement of an opinion as to the validity of an opinion" (Ellerbroek, 1980).
In many of the above mechanisms we see self-validating feedback loops. These feel comfortable, as we tend to associate with others like minds and confirm our beliefs and prejudices in their reflections of ourselves. We tend to avoid people with dissenting opinions.
We also have self-validating feedback hoops within our own minds. Francis Jeffrey points out,
A mind operates and defines itself by recurrently filtering out those patterns which are incongruent with its own structure...The principal mode of this behavior is selection of inputs by focusing and directing attention.
Our mind thus defined is essentially a paranoid system. It is a 'closed system,' in that its operation is primarily circular and self-referencing.
As a psychiatrist I have often dealt with paranoid patients. It is virtually impossible to change their opinions through logical discussion. An apocryphal story tells of a person who insisted he was dead. His psychiatrist, exhausting all ordinary arguments, asked whether he knew that dead men don't bleed. He readily agreed they did not. He assented to the psychiatrist's pricking his finger with a needle, which of course drew blood. "My goodness!" said the patient. "Dead men do bleed!"
I suggest that those who feel the rightness of healing do not spend a lot of time arguing with those who do not, but rather get on with giving, receiving and /or studying healing. This is, in fact, what healers have done. This has led them to distance themselves from a skeptical conventional medicine and science.
17. Careers and financial investments are built on world views. Research grants, professorship and products (such as drugs) are built on conceptual models. If these are threatened by competing models, funding might become scarce. Economic motives and political concerns therefore mitigate against investments in exploration of many new fields, not only psi and healing (Engelhardt & Caplan, 1987).
18. Healing touches upon fears of death. There is a dire cultural expectation of a steady downhill course in disease such as cancer and AIDS. We are led to anticipate that such diagnoses are death sentences. Not only is there little awareness of the newer techniques involving psychoneuroimmunology (which permit people to deal with their own cancers, improve their quality of life and prolong life) but there is also a resistance to even consider a possibility of success in these psychological approaches, much less in healing. This seems far to exceed the resistance generally accorded new therapeutic techniques. It is difficult to adjust to such a radical departure from the conventional attitudes toward cancer, perhaps more so that in other diseases. As an analogy I can suggest the experiment of saying goodbye to someone in an office, but then running into them again and finding it awkward to know how to relate. When someone has cancer, those around him may often start a mourning process (in effect, saying their 'farewells') as they watch the illness take it toll. This then makes it difficult for them to relate to the person if he lingers on, and more so if he frees himself from his illness. There is thus a social force against accepting healing and against encouragement of healers to treat these chronic illnesses.
Most therapists who have engaged in deep psychotherapy with people with cancers (and other serious illnesses) will attest to the frequent admission by patents that in many cases they are a socially acceptable form of suicide (LeShan, 1977; Levine, 1986; Siegel)
Healing raises fears of death in health professionals, who deal with their own fears of death by denial and repression, thereby colluding with patients having cancer, AIDS and other fatal illnesses.
19. Healing threatens to remove potentially useful symptoms. When people are confronted with their unconscious motives for becoming sick, many find that their illness is a blessing in disguise, in small and large ways. It brings all sorts of extra consideration and attention. It allows excuses for not doing many things. It may bring about more sincere and heart-felt communication and demonstrating of affection. More than one person with cancer has said, "Strange as it may seem, I'm glad I've gotten cancer. This illness has forced me to face squarely my problems within myself and between myself and those I love. My quality of life is incomparably improved since I started working out my unconscious reasons for letting this disease develop."
Healing may be rejected because people fear it will take away their secondary gains quickly and completely. They do not realize that the instantaneous, total cures are very, very rare. Healing usually boosts defenses and enhances recuperation markedly, but generally works gradually, over a period of time.
Conclusions
Some may object to my making speculative psychological interpretations based on people's belief systems. Piet Hein Hoebens stated:
Being a moderate disbeliever in extrasensory perception, ghosts, flying saucers and life after death, I do not think that I will learn the ultimate truth about the paranormal by psychoanalyzing those people who are unable to share my skepticism. However well-founded, conjectures about the believers' motives do not relieve the skeptic of the duty to evaluate the believers' arguments. (It goes without saying that this also applies to believers' conjectures about the motives of skeptics.)
I agree with Hoebens about the need to examine the evidence. My analyses have to do with those who a priori reject evidence for healing, believing the evidence must be wrong and unworthy of examination because it contradicts their belief systems.
James Fadiman points out:
A paradigm has hard edges and you can tell where the edges are because anything outside them is automatically suspect. Within the material model it's fairly clear what is suspect: non-material evidence or non-material events.
Let me give you an example of what happens when you hold paradigms past the point of usefulness. They're very handy unless you get stuck in one and can't break out of the edges... A paradigm past the point of utility becomes solidifying, rigidifying, dogmatic and ultimately becomes a religious, and I mean that in the lowest possible sense, position. Meaning it is an act of faith to which no evidence can be admitted. And when there is evidence, that is called heresy.
We shall have to expect that resistances of the above sorts will continue until there is increasing exposure of the skeptics to demonstrations of the existence and legitimacy of healing and psi. To this end, I am promoting further clinical trials to explore the effectiveness of healing.
Acceptance by laypersons may come faster than by professionals. Average people have only a vague concept regarding their internal organs and the functions of these organs. If a new process such as healing is demonstrated, they have less sensory reality information to contradict the existence of the new process; less to relinquish and unlearn. Health professionals and many scientists, in contrast, know in great detail how things "are supposed to work." It is far more dissonant for professionals to be exposed to new phenomena which appear to contradict or perhaps even invalidate processes they have studied and worked regularly.
With the questions raised by healing vs. sensory reality it is not a case of either paradigm of reality being exclusively right and the other wrong. Each is correct within the domains it describes. Healing describes a broader range of the cosmos than sensory reality accounts for.
If modern science is slow to loosen and revise its paradigms to include healing, then those who feel these are better descriptions of reality on which to base health care decisions in particular situations must simply pursue healing on their own. This will mean lobbying to convince those in government that freedom of religion should include freedom to practice one's medical beliefs. We have the model of the Christian Scientists to present to them, so it should not be impossibly difficult.
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This article was originally published as Benor, Daniel J. A psychiatrist examines fears of healing, Journal of the Society for Psychical Research 1990, 56(821), 287-298. It has been updated here with minor revisions reflecting more recent research. An expanded version of this article will appear in Healing Research, Volume IV.
**I am indebted in my discussion of this item to LeShan (1974)
Reprinted with permission of the author and publisher. Daniel J. Benor, M.D. P.O. Box 502 Medford, NJ 08055. Website: www.WholisticHealingResearch.com E-mail: DB@WholisticHealingResearch.com
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