Is There Scientific Proof We Can Heal Ourselves? By Lissa Rankin (Transcript)

Lissa Rankin MD at TEDxAmericanRiviera

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Can the mind really heal the body? And if so, is there any scientific evidence to convince skeptical physicians like me?

These are the questions that fueled the last few years of my research and what I discovered is that the scientific community, the medical establishment, has been proving for over 50 years, that the mind can heal the body. We call it the placebo effect. And we’ve been trying to outsmart it for decades.

The placebo effect is a thorn in the side of the medical establishment. It’s an inconvenient truth, that gets in between, trying to bring new treatments, new surgeries into the medical establishment. So it’s a problem. Supposedly.

But I actually think, this is really good news. The placebo effect is excellent news. Because it’s concrete evidence that the body holds within it innate self-repair mechanisms that can make unthinkable things happen to the body.

So, if you find this surprising, if you have a hard time believing that the body can heal itself, you need look no further than The Spontaneous Remission Project, a database compiled by the Institute of Noetic Sciences of over 3500 case studies in the medical literature of patients who have gotten better from seemingly incurable illnesses.