74 JEMS OCTOBER 2011
BOOK REVIEW
It’s probably quite easy to recall an injury or sickness that occurred during your childhood,
but did you know that the first words you heard after the event played an
invaluable role in how well you would manage the situation, heal and subsequently deal
with similar events in the future?
Derived from current medical research, Verbal First Aid demonstrates how the words
a caregiver chooses to say when a child is sick or in pain will cause chemical responses
to travel through the child’s body and either help or hinder the healing process, as well
as set the course for their physical and emotional recovery.
Techniques provided through descriptive scenarios teach the reader how to empower
children to actively participate in their own healing, conquer their fears and turn seemingly
tragic events into an accepted part of life.
Easy to read and compassionately presented, Verbal First Aid announces revolutionary
non-pharmaceutical healing that can be used anywhere at any time. This book is perfect
for healthcare providers, teachers and parents. It provides the key that can unlock
a child’s inner strength in any situation, thus promoting a healthy and happy life.

JEMS—By Natalie Harris BHSc, AEMCA

Bookmark to:

http://www.jems.com/news_and_articles/columns/Acosta/

the_science_of_self_healing.

html;jsessionid=B4F84463578C979DD36CA9AD74B1A045

Post-script:  There's a great study that was done in 2005 at the University of Michigan on the placebo effect (Journal of Neuroscience, August 23, 2005  http://www.med.umich.edu/opm/newspage/2005/placebo.htm)  and pain. We've always known that placebos worked…which is why they're always ruled out in double-blind studies. What we didn't know is how…what architecture responds and is responsible for the pain relief. Their study pointed to the specific brain sites that were activated by imagery alone and simultaneously relieved pain.  

This is one more pearl of evidence for Verbal First Aid.

Bookmark to:

The Art of Healing

Healing, then, is more than a technique. It is an art that utilizes every resource a person brings to bear—will, patience, strength, attitude as well as imagination.

Imagining Healing

In World War II, when medics and nurses on the battlefield were left without morphine or other painkillers, they often resorted to a more subtle form of pain relief for soldiers who were suffering: suggestion. They gave them saline injections but told them with great authority that what they were receiving was the most potent form of morphine.

What happened was what they prayed for: relief. There were no drugs administered and no “medical” reasons for the change in the soldiers’ perceptions. None, that is, but the suggestion that was given to them.

Placebo effects are so potent that they are regularly included and ruled out in pharmaceutical trials. According to John Cloud (“How a Sugar Pill Can Heal (or Hurt) You,” Time, November 2, 2009), “Scientists are coming to understand the placebo response as a cascade of neural reactions that not only provide psychological relief but also play a physiological role in block stress hormones that damage the body.”

Imagining relief can be as helpful as its drug-store counterpart—without all the “side-effects.”

This ability to receive healing suggestion and translate it into a healing response at the most basic physiological level is innate to all human beings. Naturally, in some it is greater than others.

But in children, it is the greatest of all.

Children’s Magical Lives

Children are born open. To them everything is new and everything truly is possible until either experience or tutelage makes them see otherwise. Children imagine monsters, wide-eyed fairies, flying pigs and sled-pulling, night-riding reindeer; they see connections and meaning where well-conditioned and socialized adults only see concrete effects and numbers.

This is especially true of pre-school children and it is called “magical thinking” by psychologists. In a very young child’s view, rain falls from the sky because the sky is sad. To that small child, it is entirely plausible. It is just as plausible that the sky is crying because of something he said or did. While it is considered a phase of development out of which they are expected to grow, it points to a very important truth: children are not little adults. They have a way of viewing the world that is quite different than our linear, logical, and limited way.

For this reason, Verbal First Aid and therapeutic suggestion are particularly effective with children. Logic and expectation are not yet the barriers they become for adults and it is easier to reach them with healing suggestion when they need it most.

Bookmark to:

People think that hypnotherapists only put people INTO trance. But a vastly significant percentage of the work a good hypnotherapist does is help people OUT of the unhealthy trances they’re in. Take a look around and see if it isn’t so! Who doesn’t have an IPOD attached to their head or a phone on their ear? Who isn’t spending hours staring at a TV or hooked into the internet. Our culture is now almost entirely media driven—we’re surrounded (all the time!) by advertising, media, and even music that tells us what we need, who to love, and what drugs to take to make us happy.

We don’t know who we are or what we’re doing here, but we are convinced that Viagra or a breast implant will somehow make it all better.

There are more pervasive cultural delusions that I can go through in one post but this is a brief list. We'll go through each one of them in a series.

1. Viral Fear

2. Moritis

3. The Eruption of Ugly

4.The I'm-1-N-1 Virus

5. Flushing's Disease

All of these are pandemic in proportion and are driving American culture headlong into the critical care unit. Is there a fix for them? I think so.  Stay tuned.

Bookmark to: