I was very privileged to have had some contact this week with two very smart and influential thinkers,
Ellen Langer and
Dan Moerman.
Ellen's, a professor in the Psychology Department at Harvard University, work is amazing, her pioneering research into the effect of having some control in the simplest of choices in your life on your health led her to examine the relationship between the mind and the body. From her book
Mindfulness;
'A much more pernicious loss of choice and control is brought about by repeated failure. After a number of experiences in which our efforts are futile, many of us will give up. Well-known research by psychologist Martin Seligman and others shows that this learned helplessness then generalizes to situations where the person can, in fact, exercise control. Even when solutions are available, a mindless sense of futility prevents a person from reconsidering the situation. The person remains passive in the face of situations that could easily be handled without undue difficulty. Past experience determines present reactions and robs the individual of control. . . .
Learned helplessness was originally demonstrated in rats. When placed in ice water, they have no difficulty swimming around for forty to sixty hours. However, if, instead of being put immediately into the water, the rats are held until they stop struggling, something very different happens. Instead of swimming, these rats give up immediately and drown.'
Dan Moerman, Professor of Anthropology University of Michigan-Dearborn, has looked extensively at what goes on when we take a treatment; he's looked at the medicine of non western and western cultures, and collated a lot of the research on 'placebos'. He points out that true 'placebos' are completely inert and therefore can have no effect, hence the phrase 'placebo effect' makes no sense; instead he suggest we use the term 'meaning response'.
Both Dan's and Ellen's seminal work have had a strong influence on the contents of my forthcoming
"dû" book
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