I want to take just a moment to talk about a few things that this book is
not about, to clear up any potential misconceptions right from the start. For one, you won’t read hereabout the ethics of using placebos in medical treatment. There’s much debate about the moral correctness of treating a patient who isn’t part of a medical trial with an inert substance.
While a discussion about whether the end justifies such means may well be worthwhile in a broader conversation about placebos, that issue is completely separate from the message this book aims to deliver.
You Arethe Placebo is about putting you in the driver’s seat
of creating your own change, not about whether or not it’s okay for other people to trick you into it.
This book is also not about denial. None of the methods you’ll read about here involve denying whatever health condition you may presently have. Much to the contrary, this book is all about transforming illness and disease. My interest is in measuring the changes people make when they move from sickness to health. Instead of being about rejecting reality,
YouAre the Placebo is about projecting what’s possible when you step into a
new reality.
You’ll discover that honest feedback,
in the form of medical tests, will inform you if what you’re doing is working. Once you seethe effects you’ve created, you can pay attention to what you did to arrive at that end, and do it again. And if what you’re doing isn’t working, then it’s time to change it until it is. That’s combining science and spirituality. Denial,
on the other hand, occurs when you’re not looking at the reality of what’s happening within and around you.
This book also won’t question thee cacy of the various healing modalities. Many different
modalities exist, and many of them work quite well. All of them have some type of measurable beneficial effect in at least some people, but a complete cataloging of these methods isn’t what I want to focus on in this book. My purpose here is to introduce you to the particular modality that has most captured my attention healing yourself through thought alone. I encourage you to continue using any and all healing modalities that work for you,
be they prescription drugs,
surgery, acupuncture, chiropractic,
biofeedback, therapeutic massage,
nutritional supplements, yoga, reflexology,
energy medicine, sound therapy, and soon.
You Are the Placebo is not about rejecting anything except your own self-imposed limitations.
What’s Inside This Book?You Are the Placebo is divided into two parts:
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