Panelists Discuss the Role of Prayer as a Placebo

Prayer not only offers spiritual benefits but can also function as a placebo and provide physical advantages, professors said at a panel Tuesday afternoon entitled “Placebo and Prayer: Why Prayer Practice May Help Heal.”

At the event, the third installment of a five-part series of seminars on placebos funded by The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Stanford University Professor of Anthropology Tanya M. Luhrmann spoke first about her research on the effect of prayer on the lives of evangelical Christians in the United States.

Drawing from various studies, Luhrmann said she was hesitant about the implications of the word ‘placebo,’ but noted that there is direct evidence that going to church increases life expectancy, improves immune system functions, and lowers blood pressure.

“Placebo is a terrible word. It suggests a false intervention with a surprise outcome,” she said.

Besides these physical benefits, Luhrmann also said that she often sees an active effort to emphasize the positive instead of the negative when praying.

“[Positive prayer] doesn't always work, but what you see is an effort to redirect your attention and see what is good,” Luhrmann said.

Luhrmann added that while prayer can serve as a real “emotional management system,” the success of the process as a placebo often involves seeing God as personal, believable, and real.

“Abstract belief is easy…but to feel that God is close and present is hard,” Luhrmann, noting that prayer is an intricate “meta-cognitive activity.”

Later in the event, professors and fellow panelists Arthur M. Kleinman, Anne Harrington '82, and Ted J. Kaptchuk responded to Luhrmann’s points with findings from their own work in anthropology, history of science, and medicine respectively.

The panelists discussed the need for personal belief and practice to ensure that prayers become effective placebos.

Kaptchuk, who conducts trials to test the effectiveness of placebos in different environments, said that even when a placebo drug is administered to the patient who is fully aware that the pill is merely sugar, the placebo is still effective.

Harrington, who pointed towards the history of miraculous healings at Lourdes, France, asked how special healings relate to Luhrmann’s findings. Often, Harrington said, sick individuals are reluctant to be brought to Lourdes to be healed, and only begin believing in the power of prayer after the visit.

For her part, Luhrmann continued to emphasize the ability of positive prayer to act as a placebo.

“Think about prayer as a way of paying attention to your mind,” she said.

—Staff writer Theodore R. Delwiche can be reached at theodore.delwiche@thecrimson.com.