The Placebo Effect
Theodis Holmes
Liberty University

Abstract

The placebo effect is an amazing phenomena that presents the mind with the idea that we can heal ourselves or make ourselves sick by just using our thoughts. From a psychological point of view, a person is given medication that effects the prefrontal cortex with the periaqueductal gray matter that modulates the transmission of pain information to the brain. The placebo effect allows a person to believe that something fake could become real, because of someone’s perspective of it. The placebo effect works on the neurochemistry in the brain sending pain relievers to parts of the body where the pain was, by acting as the actual pain reliever. In light of the placebo effect, it’s not what you go through that matters, it’s how you feel about it. This paper will explain the history of the placebo effect from a biblical Christian worldview, the positives and the negatives of the placebo effect, while explaining why the placebo effect is so effective.

While researching for this paper, I recalled a conversation that I had with my mother a few years back; it was disclosed to me that in 1962, my grandfather was in the hospital with cancer. My mother, sister, and I were discussion the effectiveness of doctors and the generic medication that gets prescribed to certain patients who can’t afford the expensive ones. My father died three years ago from prostate cancer, two weeks after having surgery. Before the surgery, my father seemed as if he was always in pain, but could get up and move around, spend time with the family, struggle; but try to complete different activities and task around the house. After the surgery, my father was a totally different person, he could hardly walk, he had extreme breathing problems, he felt exhausted every day, and he had to take several different types of medication throughout the day. My father started to believe that the surgery made him worse and the medication that was prescribed to him wasn’t working, because they only made him feel sick and worse than he did before his surgery. My father wasn’t much of a believer, but my grandfather loved God and whenever the doors of the church was open; he was there. It has been said that religious people who are believers, improve more in health then those how are nonbelievers (Czerniak & Davidson, 2012, p. 773). In 1962, my grandfather was admitted into the University Hospital of Chicago with cancer in his lymph nodes, and they produced orange sized tumors in his groin and abdomen. My mother explained to me that the physicians of that day exercised every available treatment and could find nothing. They convinced my grandfather to try a new medication that would assuredly yield better results. Amazingly in three days it was said that the tumors shrunk by half and within ten days he was completely discharged from the hospital with no sign of cancer in his body. My mother went on to tell me that there were other patients on the same medication that showed no improvement. It was evident that my grandfather was experiencing the placebo effect.
The placebo effect is centered on the idea that a person’s expectations and beliefs drive symptoms and disease. What helps me understand about my grandfather in 1962, is that the medication that they gave him consisted of no active ingredients; my mother explained to me that my grandmother would call them “sugar pills”. Postmodern physicians would struggle with the amount of time they would spend with patients and had limited amount of supplies. Not only were patients given sugar pills, physicians also deceived patients by administrating useless medication, like distilled water (Justman, 2011, p. 100). Yet my grandfather took the pills with the psychological expectation that if he took the pills he would get better. In essence, I believe that the medication did nothing, but I believed his mind changed, and because his mind fostered the belief that he was being healed, his body complied with his minds thoughts. Placebo is a word that comes from the Latin placere which means, “I shall be pleased”. During the 19th century the placebo effect was defined as medicine that was developed to please patients more than benefiting them (Czerniak & Davidson, p. 772). Around the 20th century the placebo effect was still pleasing people, but it was also giving them comfort while their life proceeded naturally (Kamper & Williams, 2013, p. 6). Although, the placebo effect was pleasing to most by tailoring their perception to react to how they feel, others were never involved in the deceptive process, because the placebo effect wasn’t effective for every condition (Justman, p. 96). The placebo effect is only successful in 40% of all patients, according to Czerniak & Davidson, “Through observation conducted during the 50’s and the 60’s, the therapeutic effects of any intervention was due to the placebo effect” (Czerniak & Davidson, p. 772). In other words; people are going to lose their fight with a disease or some area in their life just as my father did, because they don’t believe that they are going to be pleased. It is suggested to us that psychologically, belief is a more power weapon then medicine.
The placebo effect is also known as subject expectancy, when people know what the results are supposed to be, they adjust their reaction to meet the desired result. According to Sliwinski & Elkins, “The magnitude of the placebo effect could be altered through the creation and manipulation of positive response expectancies” (Sliwinski & Elkins, 2013, p. 237) In other words, a person’s mind has to be in a place where it tells their body what it expects. Others are classically conditioned to expect relief when they take medication, but the reality is; what do we want God to do for our life. It’s having the understanding that when God gets into our minds it doesn’t matter what is going on around us, we walk with a different kind of determination and self-assuredness, for that the Bible says, “Do not fear or be dismayed because of this great multitude, for the battle is not yours but God’s” (2 Chronicles 20:15, KJV), but if it’s in our minds, “But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint” (Isaiah 40:31, KJV). While the placebo effect originates in our heads, it has been proven to show measurable change to relax the muscles, to unnerve the tension, and to alleviate whatever pain that may exist. The placebo effect points to the importance of perception and the brains rolls on physical health, in other words; it’s all the matter on how we see it, all the more of how we see ourselves. When we operate and exercise in self-defeating behavior, the enemy looks for a portal to mess with our self-esteem, but if we could understand through our perception, while we are going through a rough season, we are not going to die in it. Our perception suggest to us; that where we are, doesn’t match the prophecy over our lives, so because it doesn’t match the prophecy over our lives, it won’t last. Our thoughts are forms of energy and they transmit information through the cells in our bodies as to how they ought to respond and how they ought to react.
There was once a method that neuroscientists used on religious believers to find a link between religion and the placebo effect, by using a magnetic field to stimulate the temporal lobe (Czerniak & Davidson, p. 773). The temporal lobe is part of the brain that interprets the meanings of different visual stimuli, formulates and recognize different objects. The prefrontal cortex is part of the brain that controls the emotions, the attention span, and controls the perception of the mind once it changes. The placebo effect has a duality of power, giving you the belief that you can either get better or you’re going to get worse, and when you get better or worse, it’s within the confines of the dimensions of your thinking. If you think you’re going to get better the placebo effect sends that message to the body, “get better”; but if we begin to worry and become overwhelmed with anxiety, the message to our body is, “we are staying in this”. Carlson stated, “The effects of the neurotransmitter are kept relatively brief by their reuptake by transporter molecules in the presynaptic membrane or by their destruction by enzymes” (Carlson, 2014, p.83). “The placebo effect is affected by other neurotransmitter such as; dopamine (DA), gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), cholecystokinin (CCK), opioids, serotonin, and endocannabinoids” (Nayak & Patel, 2014, p. 74). The molecules, atoms, genes, cells, and organs in our bodies have no agenda, they float around in our body with no leadership. They have no leadership until our thoughts send a message, about what it is; that is about to take place in our body, because the molecules, atoms, genes, cells, and organs in our body are under the auspice of our authority. Based off of the direction we tell the cells in our body to go, that will be the direction that they will follow, because our body believes our mind. There are two expectancies that help move the molecules through the distributed biological system; conscious expectations and unconscious conditioning. Conscious expectations are augmented by desires, hope, and belief, while unconscious conditioning “embodied experiences” or “remembered wellness” (Nayak & Patel, p. 75). Our perception is responsible for our pain, because according to Carlson, “When people take a medication that they believe will reduce pain, it triggers the release of endogenous opioids and actually does reduce pain sensations” (Carlson, p. 186). Opioids are in conjunction with the neurotransmitter when chemicals are released by a terminal button; to place an excitatory or inhibitory effect on another neuron. Geers, Wellman, Fowler, Helfer, & France mentioned that, “The desire for reduced pain predicts placebo analgesia and that placebo analgesia can be mediated by endogenous opioids” (Geers, Wellman, Fowler, Helfer, & France, 2010, p. 1165). According to Nayak & Patel, “Placebos act through conscious mechanisms (verbal suggestions, desire to get well, hopeful expectations, belief, and faith), as well as unconscious conditioning (psycho-neuro immune responses, positive transference in therapeutic relationship)” (Nayak & Patel, p. 78).
The Bible says, “For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me, and that which I was afraid of is come unto me. I was not in safety, neither had I rest, neither was I quiet; yet trouble came” (Job 3:25-26, KJV). To understand this scripture, we must also understand that chronologically that Job is placed in the middle of the Old Testament, it is in fact the oldest book of the Bible, because it predates its authorship before the book of Genesis. The Book of Job is very perplexing, because it’s not a book of answers, but a book of circumstances. In the first chapter of the Book of Job, his allegiance to the Almighty is called into question, and Jehovah allowed Job to participate in some temporary testing. For temporary test the objective of the test is to see if Job would stick, because He needed to have an observation on whether or not Job would only worship God when things went well. So the test that he went through was not to kill him, but to inspect him. The enemy came in and took everything from Job, his home, his money, family, his cattle, but the last thing the enemy took from Job was his health. In Job chapter 3, Job is upset about his birthday and he curses the day that he was born, he hates the night that they announced a son has been birth. The thing that warrants our attention is when Job stated that, “For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me, and that which I was afraid of is come unto me” (Job 3:25, KJV), which means that if this is the one thing that Job feared, he feared this before God and Satan met. Jesus says that He knows our prayers before we pray them, so he was scared that this was going to happen; before it happened. So, Job is our first case of the placebo effect that what happened in his mind, then manifested in his body. Before God even signed the permission slip, Job already thought that it was going to happen. He was fearful that he was going to lose his house, lose his money, lose children and his investments and because he thought it, it came to pass. It’s the placebo effect!

Conclusion
So, in the case of my father; the cancer wasn’t a disease, and the case of Job; his loses were not because of the enemy. I believe it was a built-in alarm system that was telling my father and Job that there was an area in their life that was deserving of attention. When we go through pain, I believe it’s only a reminder that we need assistance. We cannot have pain and not feel it, or else we will die with no impact. I believe every now and then God allows pain to come into our lives, because he needs our attention, because if He didn’t release pain, we would think that everything was going well. So, the placebo effect is adjusted or altered by our perception; what we think, is what we believe and what we believe; is what we feel.

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