Psychic healing and chronic pain: a randomized trial

TruthSeeker

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This peer-reviewed study appeared in the latest issue of the Journal of Psychosomatic Research 2006:60(1):59-61.

Effect of belief in “psychic healing” on self-reported pain in chronic pain sufferers

Michael Lyvers, , Norman Barling and Jill Harding-Clark

Abstract
Objective
The “psychic healing” ability of a well-known Australian psychic was subjected to a televised experimental test.

Methods
Twenty volunteers suffering from chronic pain were recruited by newspaper advertisements. Half were randomly assigned to the treatment or control condition using a double-blind procedure.

Results
Comparison of pre- and posttreatment McGill Pain Questionnaire ratings indicated no effect of psychic healing. However, pretreatment questionnaire ratings of belief in psychic healing and related phenomena were significantly correlated with improvement in McGill Pain Questionnaire ratings irrespective of treatment condition.

Conclusion
Results suggest that anecdotal reports of effective psychic healing and “faith healing” are attributable to the power of belief.
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From the paper itself:

In June 2003, the Psychology Department of Bond University was approached by Australia's popular Channel Nine television program A Current Affair with the request that we design and conduct a televised experiment to test the widely publicized claims of a well-known Australian “psychic healer”. ... 18 June 2003, a televised double-blind experiment on psychic healing was conducted...The psychic healer's method of healing involves manipulation of photographs of sick persons or animals and is claimed to heal the target across great distances–even on the other side of the world....
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Did any of our Aussie friends happen to see this televised test?

I have a pdf of the study for those who might be interested. PM an email address and I will send it.
 
???

How do you double-blind a study like that? Half the subjects get treated by a "real" psychic, and, what, the other half get treated by a placebo or "fake" psychic? Or are they saying that half the subjects got treated by a psychic, and the other half got no treatment at all? How is that double-blind?

PM on the way. This I gotta see...
 
Pdf sent.

I think I shall change the asking price for the PDF to 1PM and 1 compliment or praising statement.

Thanks.
 
As for methods...well, it isn't what I would have done and I don't think it is adequately powered, but here it is:

The psychic healer was in a separate room and had no contact with any participants until the experiment was over. As all participants waited together in a nearby room, the unseen psychic healer was successively given the photo of each participant in the treatment condition, as well as detailed information about the nature and location of their pain. The healer attempted to relieve the pain of each participant whose photo he was given and was allowed as much time as he required per photo to perform his “healing” procedure. Upon completion of the healing procedure for all 10 participants in the treatment condition, treatment and control groups were administered the McGill Pain Questionnaire a second time. Neither the participants nor the psychologists who evaluated them knew the condition, treatment or control, to which each participant had been randomly assigned (i.e., treatment was administered in double-blind fashion).
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TS, contact Australian Skeptics, who were entirely responsible for initiating the exercise in the first place. Poster Richard here can give you all the info you need because he was one of the skeptic protagonists, and possibly even a copy of the ACA TV segment as well.

It's hilarious, actually - ACA tried desperately to make a story out of an obvious nothing by simply hijacking the serious AusSkeptics project, and slicing and dicing it to get a story out of it. We have never seen a more blatant example of the TV media massaging the facts and editing the interviews to meet a preset storyline. It is the reason why we have a very low regard for ACA here.
 
Okay, PDF received, but, ermmm...a preliminary reading made my head explode, just a bit, so I'll have to get back to you.

Bunch a weeeeeird stuff.

Starting with, they got their test results by--a show of hands?? "Okay, how many people feel better now?"

And, ermm: "The main finding of this study was that the psychic healer was not able to relieve pain in chronic pain patients"?

But, but, but, you just said that 8 out of the 20 said they DID feel improvement, and their questionaires showed this?

Did sixth-graders design this study, or what?

Oy.

Be back later.
 
If you read above, it was done by the Psychology Department of Bond University and designed for your average TV viewer tuned in at night to a 10-minute ACA story slot! It was so far from being a genuine scientific trial that it was ludicrous. For a start, the so-called healer refused to define any "failure" conditions, and wanted to make ANY result he got a "positive" (:eek:) This failure to comply with the rules of the process was why the Australian Skeptics withdrew their involvement from ACA and the story, although that was definitely not made clear on the ACA tape (they wanted a story).

Even so, the very fact that there was a control group and a subject group of sorts when testing was done, despite the lack of any other refinements in control, STILL managed to show that the psychic healer's claimed abilities were in fact totally bogus and self-delusory. So I suspect that closer controls and a bigger test group, etc, would simply more sharply reinforce that result rather than change it.

All in all, though, it was a complete shemozzle.
 
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