mom started seeing a faith healer

[todd]

Have any of you had any success talking to family members that go to see faith healers?

My mom, and her husband, went to see a Dr. Nemeh in Ohio and she's convinced of his powers to heal.

She's always been "new age" and into strange things (woo). But now she's giving up her money and traveling to get "healed".

Any thoughts or suggestions about interventions?

thanks

 

[Kariboo]

Hi Todd

Welcome to the forums.

Unless your mom is open to critically looking at her decisions it will be nearly impossible to turn her away from this choice. She will see improvement even if there objectively isn;t any, or when fluctuations in her condition are expected.

 

[truethat]

I had a friend who was 40 who did Shaman type things and "energy" healing for her cancer. She's dead now. Took a year for it to kill her. The last thing I did with her was sit in on a Native American healing ritual.

 

[pakeha]

Hi, todd, welcome to theforum
dr Nemeh has been around for some time
I found an article about him from 2005
Issue Date: August 2005 Issue

A Question of Faith

As a window into the phenomenon that has made believers out of the desperate and doctors alike, Dr. Issam Nemeh talks about God, science and his critics.
Lynne Thompson
[email protected]

 

[pakeha]

From the article found here:
http://209.85.229.132/search?q=cach...+Thompson&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=es&lr=lang_en

<snip>Dr. Nemeh began a five-year general-surgery residency at Fairview Hospital in 1985. His time there ended three years later when a committee in charge of the program voted not to renew his contract due to poor performance, according to The Plain Dealer.

Cathy says her husband's residency was cut short not by lack of ability but by the program director's bias against Syrians. Nemeh responded by filing a $31 million discrimination lawsuit against the hospital in federal court. The director denied the bias charge and the claim was settled for less than $20,000, according to The Plain Dealer.

After he left Fairview, Nemeh completed a three-year residency in anesthesiology at Huron Hospital in 1991, during which he was honored as House Officer of the Year and Outstanding Resident in Anesthesiology, according to the Nemehs. Dr. Khaled Chaouki, director of cardiac anesthesia at Hillcrest Hospital who then served both as Huron's associate director of anesthesiology and the department's head of education, says Nemeh was "a very pleasant person" who was well-liked by patients and "did a good job in every aspect."

He was hired fresh out of his residency by Richmond Heights General Hospital as chief of anesthesiology (hospital officials could not confirm his position) but left after four months because "he didn't agree with the patient care," Cathy says. (According to the American Board of Anesthesiology, Nemeh was never board certified in the specialty.)

After that, Nemeh completed a five-day training session in meridian regulatory acupuncture, a practice that uses a non-FDA-approved device to provide electrical stimulation through an attached needle.

The interest wasn't anything new. Nemeh says he had experimented on himself with traditional acupuncture for years. "I stuck myself about a couple hundred million times," he says with a chuckle.

But while he was in training, Cathy recalls, Nemeh called to say, "God just sent me the tool that I need to serve him." <snip>

 

[Baby Nemesis]

Have any of you had any success talking to family members that go to see faith healers?

My mom, and her husband, went to see a Dr. Nemeh in Ohio and she's convinced of his powers to heal.

She's always been "new age" and into strange things (woo). But now she's giving up her money and traveling to get "healed".

Any thoughts or suggestions about interventions?

thanks

Discussing critical literature about faith healers with her might help, or leaving some where she'll find it when she's alone, where she can contemplate it without risking the issue turning into an immediate argument where she's on the defensive because she wants to stand up for the man, although you can't be so certain she'll bother to look at the arguments if you're not there raising the issues. Both approaches have advantages and disadvantages.

Here are a few critical articles about faith healing:

Some Thoughts about Faith Healing.
James Randi and the Faith Healers.
Junker Jorge: My Part In The Word Of Faith Fraud.

They might not be about the same kind of faith healers you're talking about, but you might get ideas from them about the kinds of things you could discuss with her, or you might be able to find things on the Internet that are equally critical of the tehcniques he does use.

Alerting her to the dangers like that might help.

But also, if you can find out about more efficacious methods of healing you could encourage her to go for, it might help a lot more than just showing her the literature, since if she doesn't know of any alternatives, she might think it's worth carrying on seeing him because he's her only hope. Perhaps there are new drugs that could help, or practical things she could learn to do for herself, such as are taught on pain management programs, if that's anything to do with the problem? Perhaps there's an American equivalent of this? Pain management approaches: NHS Pain Management Programmes.

Or if she's got some kind of disability, maybe there are disability aids and adaptations that could make things easier for her in everyday settings. Perhaps there are American equivalents of the kinds of services described here? Disabled people: Your home, adaptations and equipment.

Or if it's mainly a mental problem like stress, you could probably find low-cost scientifically-sound advice on things to help her remedy the problems, or there might be therapists who use much sounder techniques than the faith healer you could find.

Discussing options with her alongside cautioning her about faith healers might be persuasive. It'll be more difficult if she's built up a friendship with the man and she trusts him. But it may be that the more she thinks about possible disadvantages of seeing him and alternative possibilities, the more she'll come around to the idea of trying something else.

 

[todd]

pakeha - thanks for the article.
Kariboo - that's exactly where we are. We've all seen the story too many times. She's convinced that this guy has the real stuff. If i convince her that he doesn't, i'm sure that she will move on to someone else.

she's all be a "fringe" kinda lady but it has gotten "fringier" of late.

 

[bluesjnr]

truethat puts it as succinctly as anybody could in post #3. Tough love, tell Mom.

 

[Baby Nemesis]

Here's a good website for information on the harm all kinds of wacky things can do: What's The Harm?

The benefits of discussing different types of healing with her rather than individuals is that she might decide to go for a better healing technique rather than just a different person.

 

[wardenclyffe]

I don't mean to pry, but what is she trying to have healed? Is it immediate and alarming, like cancer, or something painful and chronic like arthritis?

Ward

 

[SeanDamnit]

You should interfere if:
--She's refusing to seek actual medical attention in favor of the faith healer
--The faith healer is putting a major financial strain on her and her family

Otherwise, I say leave her be. It probably makes her happy and makes her feel better even if nothing is really actually healed.

 

[Questioninggeller]

Have any of you had any success talking to family members that go to see faith healers?

My mom, and her husband, went to see a Dr. Nemeh in Ohio and she's convinced of his powers to heal.

She's always been "new age" and into strange things (woo). But now she's giving up her money and traveling to get "healed".

Any thoughts or suggestions about interventions?

thanks

All the suggestions are good above (I especially recommend Randi's book), but a few more mentions:

Randi discusses Nemeh: http://www.randi.org/jr/082605charles.html#7
And old thread: http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=39194

A Question of Faith
Issue Date: August 2005 Issue
Cleveland Magazine
By Lynne Thompson

As a window into the phenomenon that has made believers out of the desperate and doctors alike, Dr. Issam Nemeh talks about God, science and his critics.

Dr. Issam Nemeh sits on a stool and gives my right foot a quick once-over as I watch from an elevated easy chair in the small, simple treatment space in his three-room Rocky River office.
...

Full: Cleveland Magazine

 

[Quinn]

You could ask if he's as fast and loose with the rest of his observations as he was with this quote:

Nemeh says he had experimented on himself with traditional acupuncture for years. "I stuck myself about a couple hundred million times," he says with a chuckle.

Assuming he's in his mid-50s, and assuming he started "experimenting" in his mid-20s, he would have had to stick himself an average of around twenty thousand times a day, every day between then and now, for that to be true. And if the response is that he was obviously exaggerating, you might ask what else he "obviously" exaggerates, and how to tell the difference.

 

[PrettyKitty]

Hey todd,

A few years ago my mother also went to see several "energey" healers for some chronic back pain.

Now, she is a very smart and educated woman, but has been getting a little woo-y as she ages. Tells me my horoscope every time I see her, tries to interpret her dreams etc.

She claimed she felt the warmth of the energy coming from the healer each time she went, and that her pain was cured. Alas, after a few days, the pain returned.

I tried to reason with her, but to no avail, she would only get angry with me. She would go see a different one after the pain came back. Eventually, she stopped going. We never discussed it, but I assume it's because it was getting expensive and the "relief" only lasted a few days.

I hope your mom isn't going through anything life threatning and eventually sees the light

 

[Baby Nemesis]

Faith/spiritual healers might often do a lot to reduce pain temporarily when it's being caused to a large extent by muscular tension. Being pampered and maybe massaged in a relaxing environment will reduce tension and thus often pain. If someone asks a friend to chat to them and maybe gently massage bits of the affected area that aren't too painful, perhaps while listening to soothing music, it might work just as well for just as long.