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Fallon Clark's avatar

I've changed the way I talk about illness in my home and around others precisely because I learned about the powerful nocebo effect.

We aren't disordered. We are dealing with big emotional turbulences.

We aren't sick. We are detoxing our stored traumas.

This reframing has worked well in our family, and my daughter knows little of the modern "medicine" world.

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LoWa's avatar

Hi Jess, this is a great article and fully agree that it’s really amazing what the mind can do!

I struggle though to hold both dualities in play: “Your thoughts can create your reality / emotions / health” and “Environmental factors can’t be overcome with thoughts alone.”

I say this as a survivor of an abusive relationship and family violence. When I was experiencing significant physical and psychological violence and neglect (including from sexism, racism etc), the perpetrators would say, “It’s all in your head / Just think positive thoughts / it’s the story you’re making up / you just need to heal yourself and take personal responsibility / your feelings are nothing to do with me / that’s your stuff / where you’re attention goes, your energy flows” etc.

The usual new age spiritual stuff mixed up with placebo/nocebo ideas (some were doctors). Lots of gaslighting for victims!!

And yet I’m also fascinated by the type of research you mentioned and fully agree the mind is v powerful. I just tend to reject the “mind creates reality” ideas on principle because they did me more harm than good and I need to remember that systemic / external forces do impact my wellbeing (as a woman I’ve been taught to internalise (“it’s all in my head / I’m overreacting / I need to be more generous with this person “ so now I’m trying to practice externalising more (“maybe he’s the problem / maybe the system is the problem”) and it’s done wonders for my wellbeing!

Because now I’m thinking “I’m having a reasonable reaction to unreasonable circumstances “ instead of gaslighting myself and second guessing myself that maybe it’s all in my head and I’m overreacting

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