Therapeutic Placebo Effect:A Mind/Body Connection
Imagine you go to your doctor for chronic back pain and she tells you that she's going to give you a drug, yet she's not sure of its effectiveness because only approximately 40% of her patients have found it to be beneficial. How sure will you be that the outcome of this treatment will be positive? However, what if your doctor tells you she is giving you the newest, most beneficial drug treatment on the market and that she is very sure of how helpful it will be? Imagine the difference just a simple positive statement from your doctor will make when you take the pill every day. Not only will you be trusting of your treatment, but that trust will lead you to be confident (Endnote 1) that you will feel better - and in most cases, you will.
This is an example of the placebo effect - a self-made natural healing response of the body. No matter the fact that in both instances your doctor is giving you the same medication, her belief and yours in the treatment will most likely result in more positive effects. Many people argue that alternative methods of healing (such as hypnosis, therapeutic touch, homeopathic remedies, etc) are basically a placebo effect taking place. Yet, doesn't this fact prove the power of our minds both in health and in issues of pain management? Most modern scientists tend to separate the mind from the body, at least implicitly, suggesting the "mind" is simply a construct with little meaning. The one-cause, one- cure philosophy of science today often disregards the role of the mind in health and healing. Yet many of us even daily acknowledge the power of the mind when we say "oh, you're not sick- it's all in your mind". The placebo effect is not totally understood, yet this fact should not lead anyone to believe that its effects should be discounted. The placebo effect has been documented to be very powerful.
A placebo is a medicine or other kind of treatment that seems therapeutic, but in reality is inert and pharmacological inactive (2). The placebo effect is "a change in a patient's illness attributable to the symbolic import of a treatment rather than a specific pharmacologic or physiologic property" (3). Note that a placebo is not even necessary to result in a placebo effect.
The Home Depot commercials that we analyzed were primarily gender neutral, however there were masculine undertones and subtle gender stereotypes. Commercials contain a significant amount of gender stereotyping because they are altered to a specific demographic and reflect what the viewers like or who they are.
The phrase “domestic violence” typically refers to violence between adult intimate partners. It has been estimated that every year there are about 3.3 to 10 million children exposed to domestic violence in the confines of their own home (Moylan, Herrenkohl, Sousa et al. 2009). According to research conducted by John W. Fantuzzo and Wanda K. Mohr(1999): “[e]xposure to domestic violence can include watching or hearing the violent events, direct involvement (for example, trying to intervene or calling the police), or experiencing the aftermath (for example, seeing bruises or observing maternal depression)” (Fantuzzo & Mohr, 22). The effects of exposure can vary from direct effects such as behavioral and developmental issues to interpersonal relationships, all of which lead to detrimental prospects on the child’s development. This paper will explore those effects and how it affects children.
Some people are born to become legends, Bruce Springsteen is one of them. From the second he was born and through his younger years everyone knew he was destined for something bigger than a regular nine to five life, they just didn’t realize the magnitude of what was to come. Born into a all around food middle-class family, no on in that house hold even Bruce, didn’t realize that within fifty years he would reach living legend status. Also have a title of one of the best musicians to every live. After working hard at what he loves, Bruce has become known as a musical hero and inspiration to his fans and fellow musicians. With his deep lyrics, amazing stage presence, incredible guitar skills, and his passion, he is an untouchable force in the music industry. Using his lyrics to vent his emotions and past, but to also add awareness to social issues around the world. Bruce and his love for music affected him his whole life, and has shaped into what he is today. His music now affects the world. His music has truly changed the world (musically and socially) forever.
Advertising, whether criticized or celebrated, is undeniably a strong force in American society. Portrayals and Images of women have long been used to sell in published advertisements. However, how they have been used has changed enormously throughout the decades. Women have fought to find a lasting and prominent position in their society. Only in the span of twenty years, between 1900’s and 1920’s, the roles of women changed dramatically here in United States.
While speaking to Walton, the monster first shows that he is very regretful and remorseful about his actions. He starts by making no attempt to exculpate himself from blame. The creature, in fact, emphasizes his guilt instead by saying: “No crime, no mischief, no malignity, no misery, can be found comparable to mine” (189). Here he highlights his wrongdoings by using a multitude of words to describe them, each with a subtly different meani...
Each year approximately 4.8 million acts of physical or sexual aggression are perpetrated against women while 2.9 million physically aggressive acts are perpetrated against men within the United States (Edleson, Ellerton, Seagren, Kirchberg, Schmidt & Ambrose, 2007). Many of these incidents take place in the presences of children, which make these figures even more disturbing (Evans, Davies & DiLillo, 2008). Research indicates that 40.2% of United States battered women responding in national surveys state that their children have witnessed one or more abusive events (Edleson et al., 2007). Overall 66% of research samples regarding childhood exposure to domestic violence reported to having direct exposure to the abuse (Barnett, Miller-Perrin & Perrin, 2011).
But one may wonder when DPB is necessary and what the benefits of such practice are. Cullen and Klein state that “this deception-to-benefit-the-patient view has a prima facie (at first glance) appeal,” although some may argue that this line of thinking has not yet been proven with positive results. One illustration to this theory is when a doctor tells a kidney transplant recipient that he is doing good and that the prognosis looks promising with the justification that the patient, although the kidney is not functioning at all, but after hearing the positive feedback from the physician, it may lift his spirit and regain full health. The physicians with this type of ideology presume that “a sick person isn’t made better by gloomy assessments.” This type of DBP is intended to be used in order to benefit the patient, however, there are no proven cases to confirm that this method works, and it’s merely intended as an effort for the physicians to make the patient feel better, furthermore, as stated by Cullen and Klein “In all but rarest cases, deceiving a patient ‘for his own good’ is an unacceptable way for a physician to try to help her patient.” (Cullen & Klein
Roger Higgs, in “On Telling Patients the Truth” supplies commonly used arguments for paternalistic deception. For the purposes of this paper, paternalism will be defined as, “interference with one’s autonomy or self determination for their own good.” The first argument for paternalistic deception is founded on the idea that medicine is a technical subject where there are very few guarantees (613). Thus, Higgs supplies the argument that not only is it impossible for a patient to understand the true breadth of their diagnosis and prognosis, but additionally that medical predictions are not medical truths. The second argument for paternalistic deception comes from the belief that patients do not actually want to know the truth about their condition, and could suffer from worse health outcomes if they are told the truth (614, 615).
Truth in medicine is a big discussion among many medical professionals about how doctors handle the truth. Truth to a patient can be presented in many ways and different doctors have different ways of handling it. Many often believe that patient’s being fully aware of their health; such as a bad diagnosis, could lead to depression compared to not knowing the diagnosis. In today’s society doctor’s are expected to deliver patient’s the whole truth in order for patients to actively make their own health decisions. Shelly K. Schwartz discusses the truth in her essay, Is It Ever Ok to Lie to Patients?. Schwartz argument is that patients should be told the truth about their health and presented and addressed in a way most comfortable to the patient.
Advertising surrounds the world every second of the day. This form of influence has had the power to influence how society views gender roles ever since men and women began to appear in advertisements. Through the exposure to many different gender portrayals in advertising, gender roles become developed by society. This stems from how men and women are depicted, which forms stereotypes regarding the individual roles of men and women. People often shift their definition of an ideal image towards what they see in advertisements. From this, they tend to make comparisons between themselves and the advertisement models. Advertisements tend to be brief, but impactful. The different portrayals of men and women in advertising show that advertisements
How does domestic violence between parents and parental figures affect the children who witness it? This is a question often asked by Sociologists and Psychologists alike. There have been studies that prove that children who witness domestic inter-parental violence experience mental health problems, issues with gender roles, substance abuse, the committing of crimes and suicide/suicide attempts later in their lives. This paper will explore all five of these 'effects' of domestic violence on children and show that there is evidence of a clear relationship in which increasing parental violence is associated with increasing outcome risks (Fergusson & Horwood, 1998, p.8).
In the article “The Mental Health of Children Who Witness Domestic Violence”, Meltzer et al. (2009) noted that domestic violence is not only limited to seeing the actual violent acts taking place, but it also includes witnessing the outcomes of the violence. These outcomes can include seeing their parent hurt and depressed, as well as noticing the broken objects left around the house. As well as defining domestic violence, Meltzer et al. (2009) discussed the steps that were taken to conduct a random research on families and children that had been exposed to domestic violence and those who had not. The researchers identified...
Violence is displayed everywhere in society through media like entertainment, in their schools and communities, and within their homes. It is difficult to imagine living in a world without some sort of violence due to it being so prevalent in society. Many children have been exposed to violence in their own homes or have become victims leaving detrimental short and long term effects. There are three forms of domestic violence in the homes. They are physical, sexual, emotional abuse. People often think of domestic violence as having bruises or a broken arm, but in reality it is an occurrence that happens repeatedly over a period of time. One study concluded “children in domestic violence shelters found that almost half their mothers had
Lundy, M., & Grossman, S. F. (2005). The mental health and service needs of young children exposed to domestic violence: Supportive data. Families in Society, 86(1), 17-29. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/230168631?accountid=10825
...ebo means that anything seems to be real but actually it is not real then, doctors create something fake such as pills, shots or drugs on people’s brains in order to heal a disease. For example, a pill is given to a person who has insomnia and said positive things about treatment. After that emotional effect and pill, person feels better and s/he can sleep well afterwards. In another specimen, people can