Written by: Emily Brook, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
“It’s all in your head” is a phrase I heard numerous times during my career as a physiotherapist before becoming a coach. A patient would arrive in my clinic room agitated, anxious, and feeling dismissed regarding their pain. They had been referred by another professional, sometimes another physiotherapist, sometimes a consultant, after receiving test results that had come back negative or NAD (nothing abnormal detected). The patient had been told that there was no physical cause of the pain. Therefore it must be in their mind. Patients often reported having the exact phrase “it’s all in your head” said to them or a variation of this that led the patient to surmise that the professional didn’t believe the pain. The patient is then referred to another professional or department for help with managing the symptoms.
There are many themes to unpick and explore in this type of scenario, such as the delivery of test results, language used, pain education, and more. However, I’d like to focus on the irony of the phrase “it’s all in your head” and where we’re missing the point with placebo in the medical world.
THE SCIENCE
When we talk about pain, the phrase “it’s all in your head” actually has an element of truth in it. In the past, we have believed that the body has specific pain receptors called nociceptors which tell us if something is painful, however, the ever-evolving research base for pain now shows that we don’t, in fact, have pain receptors, but we do have pressure receptors which receive a stimulus and send a message to the brain to be interpreted as pain or otherwise. Interpretation is based on past experiences and memories, which include past feelings and emotions. This has changed our understanding of pain somewhat and taken us into a space of greater autonomy when we think about pain and the involvement of the brain.
Now let’s talk about the term placebo in the medical world. Often during research, in order to test the efficacy of a new drug or intervention, a placebo is used. This allows for making comparisons, keeping the research robust, and improving validity. If testing a new drug, the placebo is often a ‘pretend’ drug, a tablet made of sugar, and the patient is told that it is a drug designed to, for example, reduce their pain. Another way the word placebo is used is when a patient has a positive result from an intervention that hadn’t been expected, for example, a research-based intervention predicted a particular result. However, the result was different, yet still positive. The word placebo, in this case, is used when there is no explanation for the results gained “it must be placebo.”
PLACEBO POWER
What I’d like to highlight is that the ‘placebo effect’ actually tells us a LOT about the importance and power of BELIEF. In both scenarios briefly presented above, the patient is given something (a pretend drug or intervention) to help them, in this case, reduce their pain. They are given information about what it is they’re receiving and how it is going to help their pain. They, therefore, TAKE ON the belief that their pain CAN BE CHANGED, and they BELIEVE that the drug or intervention they’re going to receive is going to have a positive effect on them. They believe they will FEEL better. They are NO LONGER FOCUSED ON THE PAIN but on the potential to feel less pain or be free from pain. They are optimistic, motivated, hopeful, and curious, which are all emotions conducive and necessary for change, and the more they focus on HEALING and where they want to be, NOT on where they currently are, they start to shift their focus and re-wire the circuity in their brain.
Placebo, therefore, represents the POWER of our THOUGHTS and BELIEFS of something is possible for us. It represents the power of the MIND in being able to take on new beliefs, to open the mind up to a new reality different from what is currently being experienced, and to create a shift, a physical change in the body; like in the example given, taking a ‘pretend’ pain relief and feeling less pain or feeling no pain, because they had the BELIEF that it was going to work.
This is why the phrase “it’s all in your head” actually has some truth in it because what and how we think is based on our beliefs which are part of the subconscious coding that we’ve picked up in childhood and reinforced over time. The intimate connection between stored emotions in the body and the way we think unlocks so many answers when you connect the two. This is also why placebo shouldn’t be a throwaway comment but rather the opening of a much greater conversation about the power of the mind and how we can use this to actually help people to heal, get out of survival and move towards thriving. It gives patients greater autonomy and power in their own journey. It shows where they actually reinforce and prologue their own suffering (as hard as that can be to accept), and most of all, it stops people from being co-dependent on a system that keeps them stuck and seeking answers outside of themselves.
BELIEF IS EVERYTHING
Our beliefs create our reality, there’s no doubt about that. What you focus on, you attract more of. If you have pain, and you focus on the pain, you will feel more pain, that’s just how it works. You have to believe that healing is possible, you have to believe you can change; you have to believe that infinite possibilities are available to you if you open your mind enough to see and do the inner work. This is why I love the work I do now with my clients, where I take them on a journey of radical self-responsibility and realization, awakening the immense power they have within to move out of stress, struggle, and suffering to a place of inner calm, peace, and freedom. We have to stop talking about pain and start talking about the path to freedom that is available to us all. There’s a place for medical intervention, but there’s a much bigger place for taking ownership of your life and stepping up to a whole new level of becoming the person you actually want to be. We need to tell people that they CAN get over this. They can get over ANYTHING. You are not a product of your circumstances unless you believe that you are.
THE MESSAGE
So, to come full circle, we need to be delivering negative test results in a way that EMPOWERS patients to feel reassured by the results and encourages them to CELEBRATE that it’s a really good sign; no further tests or investigations are needed. THEN we need to EDUCATE them on the mind and body, pain science, and how the mind plays a huge role in the experience of pain and go on a journey of inquiry and unpicking all the drivers to the physical manifestation of pain. More often than not, there is an unhealed emotional wound that needs processing.
This all highlights where the medical system does not serve people to heal. As long as professionals remain in their own box, their own ‘scope of practice’, the longer we continue to separate the human based on their complaints and reinforce disconnection within our WHOLE being. The new wave of HEALING is seeing the bigger picture of health and healing and how everything about you is so deeply interconnected, and when you return to the core of who you are and de-condition, you actually set yourself free. Self-management with exercises alone is often not the way radical self-responsibility and stepping into a whole new way of BEING is the way.
Emily Brook, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Emily is a multi-passionate health and life coach and mentor, with a special interest in what it means to be human and activating human potential by facilitating people to move from a state of stress, struggle and despair into a space of thriving, finding inner freedom, and activating the power within to curate a life of fulfilment.
Emily previously worked as a physiotherapist for ten years working with many different patient groups with many different health issues and gained a broad understanding of the different ways people suffer and helping them, through rehabilitation, to achieve their goals.
It wasn’t until Emily found herself in a state of emotional pain in 2019, with the sudden ending of her marriage, that her understanding of suffering opened up to a much deeper level. She embarked on a journey with mindfulness as a way of coping and found it an instrumental part of her own personal transformation that she went on to study for a diploma in mindfulness-based approaches at Bangor University. She also dove deep into the world of self-reflection and personal development.
Emily’s coaching approach fuses neuroscience and philosophy at the intersection of science and spirituality and includes core pillars of subconscious programming, emotional health and regulation, brain science, the law of attraction, and meditation and mindfulness.
Emily guides you on a journey of introspection, going within to uncover the real you, expanding self-awareness, peeling back the layers of conditioning, and activating the power and potential within. She believes the key to moving from suffering to thriving is in our ability to understand the brain and mind, process emotions, heal, learn lessons, find deeper meaning and connection, and become the architect of our own minds and life. You can find Emily on Facebook and Instagram.
