As adults, we all have the freedom to believe whatever we want. Whether it is that we will go to a higher than human plane, as in the case of the recent mass suicides in Rancho Santa Fe, California, or believing that breast feeding should be done only in private.

Three requirements must be fulfilled before a scientist can establish an objective, scientific result, they are: measurability, predictability and reproducibility. These are standards that the Institutes of Health Office of Alternative Medicine have begun to apply to unconventional treatments in medicine, reports Harold Benson, MD in his new book Timeless Healing -- The Power and Biology of Belief.

Each individual has a unique set of beliefs. Groups form and have collective beliefs. Those can identify and differentiate different communities whether religious, professional or cultural.

In the health industry, studies showed that treatments later found to be misguided, worked 70-90% until they were no longer believed. Their effectiveness then dropped to 30-40%. This demonstrates the "placebo" effect or the power in the belief of the cure.

At least 20 years ago, Dr Mark D. Epstein and Dr. Herbert Benson identified three overlapping ways that belief is influenced. They are the expectations of the individual, the expectations of the care giver and the third is the relationship between the two people.

A simple example follows to demonstrate this thinking. I want to have a happy garden and I consult with a gardener who really cares about me getting a happiness garden. They say that I will get a happy garden if I place a white rabbit statue in my garden. I follow the advice as I believe in this expert and when I look at the white rabbit in my garden, I am happy and I believe you will be too. This belief is not held up to the rigors of science but is still very powerful.

In addition to being susceptible to beliefs that help us, we are susceptible to the nocebo effect; that is, beliefs that do us harm. Dr. Benson coined the term "nocebo" to describe how belief can work against us too. Unpleasant images and beliefs can result in deadly prophecies. Many of us believe that the mass suicides are the results of beliefs that work against us.

Dr. Yankelvoich, a public opinion analyst, states that there are two major problems influencing people today. The first is that they are hit with increased lack of respect. They feel they are not being listened to as with the increased use of telephone recordings. HMO's and managed care, prevent people from selecting the professional they want to work with when they are most vulnerable. The result is that they feel used.

The second major factor is that people are yearning for a deeper, larger meaning. He explains that we are suffering the backlash of the Individualism of the 70's. People are looking for a new individualism with responsibility. No longer can we fool ourselves into thinking that our individual actions do not affect others. We will hear little of the true victims of the mass suicide, the survivors. Our attention needs to go out to all those survivors who were related, connected to those who died.

In addition, I want to reinforce what Richard Louv encouraged in his column this week in the San Diego Union: "In a nation, or a neighborhood, there is nothing that can produce death, or submission, quite so efficiently as unchallenged group thinking...the only good community is one in which everyone is allowed to be different. The price we pay for our freedom, for being able to choose life, is that some folks can choose to go chasing a comet's tail."

4/15/98

Connie Saindon, M.A., MFT, has been a Licensed Marital and Family Therapist since 1979. In addition to providing services for Individuals, couples and families, Ms. Saindon is among the few specialists in the field of violent death bereavement. Founder the Survivors of Violent Death Program and volunteer faculty at the University of California Medical School Department of Psychiatry, she is author of The Journey, Violent Death Bereavement: Adult Survivors Workbook and contributing author of Violent Death: Resilience and Intervention beyond the Crisis. To reach her, please see this page.