Do I sound like a kook? I don’t think so, but no kook ever does.
Dr. Ted Kaptchuk, a Harvard physician, told a New Yorker writer several years ago that he’s always “believed there is an important component of medicine that involves suggestion, ritual and belief.” He added: “All ideas that make scientists scream.”
Dr. Kaptchuk is the chief of Harvard’s program in placebo studies and the therapeutic encounter, which is focused on studying the power of the mind to influence health outcomes. In that same interview, he noted that medicine has known for centuries that some people respond to the power of suggestion — but not why or how.
During his tenure at Harvard, Dr. Kaptchuk wrote in an email, “I haven’t been twiddling my thumbs.” He sent along a list of the more than a dozen studies he’s either led or participated in that show how placebos, rituals, beliefs and talismans play a role, albeit “modest,” when compared with surgery and medication.
When you’re in a fight for your life, “modest” is something to hang on to.
Five years after my diagnosis, my oncologist said I was cured. I believe science played the key role in that. But I also think the hope embodied in the bunny made a difference to my well-being, reducing anxiety and giving me more good days than bad.
Can I prove it? No. Does that mean it’s not true? No. As Dr. Kaptchuk told The New Yorker, “We need to stop pretending that it’s all about molecular biology. Serious illnesses are affected by aesthetics, by art, and by the moral questions that are negotiated by practitioners and patients.” All ways of saying, by luck or magic.
These days my now-scuffed bunny is in other hands. I’ve lent it to my sister Julie, who was given a diagnosis of ovarian cancer last fall. After three decades without a name, it now has one (“Ramelle,” after a character in Rita Mae Brown’s book “Six of One”). Friends have given Julie various good luck charms — new bling that Ramelle sports along with her fraying tutu.
Not long ago, I asked Julie what Ramelle represents to her and she replied in a flash: “Beauty, faith, love, acceptance and happiness.” What could be more hopeful — or magical — than that?
Steven Petrow, a Hillsborough, N.C., writer, is a regular contributor to Well.
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