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Reiki can’t possibly work, so why does it?

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Re: Reiki can’t possibly work, so why does it?

#101

Post by eru »

Erlich_Bachman wrote: post #71
eru wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not completely clear whether there are any psychotherapies that are better than placebos. Though you have to be careful how you define your placebo. One approach would be a sugar pill. But the patient would know that this is not psychotherapy. So it doesn't work as a proper placebo. A slightly better example is a heartwarming chat with a high status individual who is not schooled in any psychotherapy. Say a rand…

> It's not completely clear whether there are any psychotherapies that are better than placebos. What can be said for sure, and which was my original point, is that regardless of which one is "better", they are not the same thing at all. They are two very different distinct concepts that describe two very different existing phenomena. Incidentally, it is very clear to me, based on my life experience (and that include…

In some sense the broader question is what about psychotherapy actual does the work.

So when I mentioned talking to some random high status individual who lends a sympathetic ear, that's one way to separate the factors.

Another one, with lots of practitioners, is looking at pastors and other religious figures. Pastoral care is a big deal. Whether you want to treat that as placebo or a special kind of psychotherapy is a judgement call.

If these examples work just as well (or badly) as Freudian psychoanalysis, then that's good knowledge to build on.

Perhaps they work better or worse than Freudian psychoanalysis. That's also useful to know.

See https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/11/20/book-review-all-therap... for how basically every kind of therapy can claim lots of life experience and critical thinking evidence in its favour.

Re: Reiki can’t possibly work, so why does it?

#103

Post by pas »

freepor wrote: post #50

Western medicine is, IMHO, too averse to exploiting the very real, very powerful, placebo effect. To get a treatment approved you need to prove that it's not a placebo, which excludes, of course... effective placebos. In India, for example, a lot of family doctors don't see their job as curing the disease, but as giving the patient a feeling of agency and control over their lives. Letting them feel like they're doing…

No, clinical studies work by showing statistically significantly greater efficacy than the placebo (sham treatment) group. Placebo can be anything. Just as the treatment.

But it turns out that placebo is basically the measure of how much the patient believes in the treatment. And that correlates with price, attention of staff, length of treatment, etc.

Re: Reiki can’t possibly work, so why does it?

#104

Post by freepor »

pas wrote: post #103
freepor wrote: post #50

Western medicine is, IMHO, too averse to exploiting the very real, very powerful, placebo effect. To get a treatment approved you need to prove that it's not a placebo, which excludes, of course... effective placebos. In India, for example, a lot of family doctors don't see their job as curing the disease, but as giving the patient a feeling of agency and control over their lives. Letting them feel like they're doing…

No, clinical studies work by showing statistically significantly greater efficacy than the placebo (sham treatment) group. Placebo can be anything. Just as the treatment. But it turns out that placebo is basically the measure of how much the patient believes in the treatment. And that correlates with price, attention of staff, length of treatment, etc.

I don't understand your comment but realize that I do understand it if I change your opening "no" to "yes."

Re: Reiki can’t possibly work, so why does it?

#105

Post by asjw »

connectsnk wrote: post #31

Many people are commenting that Reiki is like Meditation i.e. all mumbo jumbo placebo effect. This might persuade a lot of people to reject both without going through the experience. I have been a very infrequent practitioner of meditation since 2009. I am now a very different person and there is no way for me to measure how or what has changed in me. I am way more focused, happier and might I conservatively add the…

> . I am way more focused, happier and might I conservatively add the word "successful" in my married life as well as financially.

I never practiced meditation, I am more focused, happier etc. now than I was before.

It's a collateral effect of aging well and seeing the results of the struggles of my younger self.

And also some of the hormones reduce their effects when you age.

Meditation can help because it can put you in the mindset of taking care of yourself

But there are many things that actually work better if one understand that taking care of yourself is the most important path towards a better life

Re: Reiki can’t possibly work, so why does it?

#106

Post by tempestn »

adrianN wrote: post #28
Illniyar wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, placebo doesn't work if you know it isn't real.

Actually it does: https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/placebo-can-work-even-kn...

I have to imagine that it works even _better_ if you believe it's more than just a placebo though, but it'd be interesting to see evidence! That study compared open placebo to nothing. I'd be interested in a study where one group believed they were getting a trial drug and the other group believed they were getting placebo, but really both were getting the same placebo.

Re: Reiki can’t possibly work, so why does it?

#107

Post by pjc50 »

hcarvalhoalves wrote: post #23

> The ailments that Reiki seems to treat most effectively are those that orthodox medicine struggles to manage: pain, anxiety, chronic disease, and the fear or discomfort of facing not only the suffering of illness but also the suffering of treatment. This is key. Modern medicine, with the way hospitals and health insurance are run, do not and cannot address, for economic reasons, a pretty important aspect, albeit su…

This is one of those areas where public healthcare isn't necessarily any better - the important barrier is getting the profession to take you seriously, and for many chronic conditions deemed "livable with" that is a problem. Everything from fibromyalgia to endometriosis.

Re: Reiki can’t possibly work, so why does it?

#108

Post by h0h0h0h0111 »

riffraff wrote: post #82
nindalf wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don’t know about that guy but I did it with Headspace. It’s guided meditation - he coaches you through it. I found it pretty helpful. Nowadays I do guided yoga with YouTube videos but I try to keep the lessons from Headspace in mind while doing them - clear my mind, focus on my breathing, if my mind wanders gently bring it back, think about how my body feels etc.

another vote for headspace for a simple reason: it has very little (none?) metaphysical/new age/faux-buddhist BS. Things "feel the energy of the earth getting in through your soles" kind of things, which I find deeply annoying and distracting. I am sure such things _are_ useful for some people though, so YMMV.

Headspace and Youtube were also my experience. I think a large part of getting into meditation is finding a meditation guide(?) with a voice you enjoy listening to.

It sounds really silly, but certain accents (particularly ones close to my own) were quite uncomfortable to listen to, and similarly certain scripts (like you, the "energy mumbo-jumbo") were really distracting.

After trying out a bunch of youtubers I eventually found some with a voice and script that helped me feel at ease, but I'm sure it's a very personal endeavour

Re: Reiki can’t possibly work, so why does it?

#109

Post by tempestn »

ghthor wrote: post #27

It can possibly work, if you open your mind to more then what's possible in the materialist scientific viewpoint.

I don't know what a "materialist scientific viewpoint" is, but I'm not sure how one would seek to understand the world from other than a scientific viewpoint. You'd just be guessing based on intuition. If there's something that's real, it should be possible to investigate it in a scientific manner. For example, you could imagine a study comparing the effects of a real Reiki session to a fake one performed by an actor with no Reiki training. Depending on the results, that might give scientific evidence (not definitive proof, of course) suggesting either that there is a not-yet-understood element to the Reiki practice that does have a real effect, or that the effects are tangential, perhaps due to relaxation, placebo effect, or endorphins. Either way, further studies could be designed to delve further into understanding. That's science.

Re: Reiki can’t possibly work, so why does it?

#110

Post by tsimionescu »

bigfudge wrote: post #91
tsimionescu wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's all mumbo jumbo is equivalent to 'it has been proven not to work'. That is a strong position to take, not a default one. The second is too hand-wavy to even really call a position. Note that it's generally important to separate the possible effectiveness of a technique from the beliefs about why it may be effective that practitioners hold. Willowbark is an effective remedy for some ailments, not because of some…

The thing is Reiki is just the latest in a long line of fads we have to consider seriously, despite having a (reasonable) prior that they won't work because the physics doesn't make sense. Proponents of woo can keep wasting our time by switching to a newly labelled energy fad. People spent a lot of time and serious money running trials of homeopathy etc. We will see the same pattern here.

That's the most likely outcome based on prior experience, I agree. Though I would stress again that the fact that practitioners believe they are performing some kind of magic does not prove they can't have stumbled onto an effective practice by accident and long trial and error.
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