Wishful Thinking, Hope, and Placebo. Exploring the Connections between Religion and Medicine Beyond Illusion, Delusion, and Ideation (original) (raw)

2016, Sofia Philosophical Review

http://sphr-bg.org/16/78/296.html ----- The following article attempts to investigate the conceptual issues at the center of epistemological and methodological frameworks aimed at understanding the placebo effect, with a special focus on medical perspectives on mind-body connection and an emphasis on mental health. Implementing cutting-edge scientific discoveries with a solid philosophical investigation is fundamental in order to avoid possible therapeutic and epidemiological errors and provide a solid theoretical background to those areas of scientific investigation still open to clinical trials, diagnosis and statistical analysis. In particular, the focus on the connections, as well as the differences, between terms such as perception and consciousness fosters the combination of data collected through neurobio-logical experimentation, especially in neuroimaging, and the philosophical debate on the applicability of such terms in the context of the human healing process. Thus, new perspectives on the reality and reason, in causal terms, of certain healing mechanisms are discussed beyond the current bio-psycho-social standpoint. In defining clinical expectations in terms of positive outcomes of a therapy, intervention or procedure, we have to take into account those realms of investigation, which are inevitably connected, if not a founding basis, of being a patient and more generally a human being.

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