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

theatlantic.com

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

#161
post #128
post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people have a psychological condition they get sick from things they think makes them sick, like wireless and 5G. I don't judge the merits, but it can be anything and sometimes rooted in the psychological makeup. Your failure to argument is just a failure to listen.

I did mention the Nocebo effect. And I do think talking to others or having professional help to a normal psychologist is absolutely okay, the right thing / a good thing.

Yes, my last point was meant generally (can't edit anymore). Ie. we often tend to try to convince others with long-winded arguments, while what may be needed is just listening and learning different perspectives. It rarely works well that you can actually "convert" people. When that succeeds, the ground for critical thinking tend to get even worse, ie. in closed or cult-like groups!

More important than the positions we take, is the critical introspective thinking that leads us to along the way (free thinking).

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

#162
post #26

Human touch does trigger positive neurochemical cascades. We might understand how all this works much better in the future, perhaps we big improvements in in vivo imaging of biological processes. Maybe some future version of CARS microscopy that does not fry the cell; better theory on multi-scale processes in human biology; and much better fMRI than what we have now.

Reiki does not involve touch.

The article refers to it as "touch-based healing", and every picture of it bar one involves touching. Is the article wrong?

Wikipedia also claims it involves touch: "the only thing that distinguishes reiki from Therapeutic touch is that it [reiki] involves actual touch".

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

#163
post #129
post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, the attitude one holds is important. People can sense that at some level. Subtle energy is real though. Reiki is one of the modalities that does not require being in person. There’s a bunch of weirder, more obscure modalities that can work with chronic pain, trauma, and the like.

Addressing the quiet downvoters. It upsets me how dismissive our culture can be. What if there's something to it? There's a rich history of people thinking that there is. Do they really not deserve a second thought? I wish everyone were always a skeptic, but never off-hand dismissive. To those entrusting our mainstream with authority on what's bullshit and what's not, remember that psychedelics research is still ille…

[deleted]

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

#164
post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a simple logical explanation why meditation works. A huge amount of suffering comes from people making value judgements about things they're thinking about: "X happened/is happening/will happen, X is bad, now I feel bad". Meditation has two effects on this: firstly, it encourages non-thinking (or focusing on some specific thing like breathing), which means less time for random thoughts, which means less time…

There's a problem with taking something as subtle as the internal workings of a human and saying "aha! I now understand what the effect of this is or why that is happening". We seek simplicity and conformance to our mental models, but nature doesn't have those constraints. It's naive to think "I've figured it out". And, that's a good thing. Many times desire for explanations is just to make oneself feel in control. J…

It's not about describing the mind, it's about modelling the mind. E.g. if we have some reasonable axioms: thinking about things can cause suffering, how reaction to something depends on how we value it, and our values can be change, then from those axioms it follows that we can change how much we suffer from thinking about things by changing our values.

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

#165
post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It never worked for me. I always got the impression the therapist was blowing smoke up my ass. I also have a hard time rectifying the idea that you can pay someone to listen to you, and at the same time try and hold the belief they really care about and like you. If they care, why are they accepting money just to listen to you? To accept the premise of psychotherapy, and what they tell you in sessions, namely that th…

> If they care, why are they accepting money just to listen to you? Because they have to pay for food, pay for a roof over their head and pay down their student loan? Accepting payment does not mean they will care, but it certainly does not preclude that they may care.

Then what are you paying them for?

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

#166
post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Addressing the quiet downvoters. It upsets me how dismissive our culture can be. What if there's something to it? There's a rich history of people thinking that there is. Do they really not deserve a second thought? I wish everyone were always a skeptic, but never off-hand dismissive. To those entrusting our mainstream with authority on what's bullshit and what's not, remember that psychedelics research is still ille…

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. None was provided, so we will have to dismiss it until some proof is provided. Nobody is dismissing proof here. They're only dismissive of the extraordinary claims that an immeasurable energy somehow inherent to some things has any effect beyond essentially the placebo effect. After all, there hasn't been any evidence which showed differently. If you have some stud…

> Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

No, they require the same evidence as any other claim, but none was provided.

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

#167
post #64

> 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…

Reiki focuses specifically on this aspect in emphasizing the focus, intent and emotional commitment of the practitioner. Replace "energy" with "emotion" and it begins to look legitimate.

> Reiki focuses specifically on this aspect in emphasizing the focus, intent and emotional commitment of the practitioner. Replace "energy" with "emotion" and it begins to look legitimate.

Even better replace "energy" with "attention" or "sympathy". See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unconditional_positive_regard

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

#168
post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Addressing the quiet downvoters. It upsets me how dismissive our culture can be. What if there's something to it? There's a rich history of people thinking that there is. Do they really not deserve a second thought? I wish everyone were always a skeptic, but never off-hand dismissive. To those entrusting our mainstream with authority on what's bullshit and what's not, remember that psychedelics research is still ille…

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. None was provided, so we will have to dismiss it until some proof is provided. Nobody is dismissing proof here. They're only dismissive of the extraordinary claims that an immeasurable energy somehow inherent to some things has any effect beyond essentially the placebo effect. After all, there hasn't been any evidence which showed differently. If you have some stud…

And who's the authority on what's extraordinary then?

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

#169

"Over the past two decades, a number of studies have shown that Reiki treatments help diminish the negative side effects of chemotherapy, improve surgical outcomes, regulate the autonomic nervous system, and dramatically alter people’s experience of physical and emotional pain associated with illness." The article links, with the phrase "a number of studies" to what seems to be one study [1]. In this study it looks l…

If a placebo works generally then it works. Isn't all psychotherapy in a way just a placebo?

No, no it isn't—at all.

Others have said it better than I'm going to here, but please disabuse yourself of this notion.

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