to think that crystals really do heal the mind?!

[woodentop123]

This is intended as a fun/interesting discussion!

I have a friend who is very spiritual and loves crystals. I've always been open minded (to most things!) and thought I'd have a look at purchasing some myself.

I think crystals are incredibly beautiful so I'm naturally drawn to them and I do feel like they're working when I meditate with them. Does anybody else use crystals... if so may I ask which ones and what for? Or has anybody had negative experiences?!

Would love to hear your stories and especially your suggestions!

If you don't believe in healing crystals I completely understand! If we were all the same we'd be boring! Please still feel free to comment but without hate or prejudice!

TornFromTheInside I take your point but maybe you will understand mine when I suggest nobody here is ripping anybody off so the argument is maybe better placed elsewhere?

If I’m being ripped off by believing that a rock will bring me inner peace then surely that’s on me?

“Perhaps because people feel passionate about not seeing people ripped off via faux-science?”
This.
As I said earlier, people can obviously believe anything they want to believe. It’s when they start telling other people that their beliefs are real, or selling them stuff that the problems start.

We all have little thing that aid our mental health and general wellbeing, but I would not prescribe a course of playing guitar, or going for a jog to someone with a serious mental health issue, or physiological problem.

I’ve never been sectioned but I have been hospitalised for my mental health. I also have problems / bad side efforts to multiple psychiatric drugs.

I have actually had both those things suggested by doctors, and acupuncture actually.

In my experience there’s little to no scepticism shown by doctors at the sharp end - holding crystals seems to fall into self care, and as far as they are concerned the more self care they can encourage, the better.

There are plenty of places where everyone affirms this kind of thing. Half the bloody internet.

But you asked if crystals heal the mind, in AIBU, on a website famous for swearing plain talking. I mean you must have thought people would debate the point. And people who are passionate about scientific method and evidence-based medicine, yes, we think crystals are bollocks.

Diamonds would definitely heal my mind

But they would hurt my wallet

MrsTerryPratcett You’re right, everybody does have an opinion and is very plain talking on here. I admire that, like I’ve mentioned - we’d be boring if we were all the same! I don’t have an issue with somebody having a different view to me. I honestly don’t care if somebody doesn’t “believe” in crystals!

What I just don’t understand as much is when people seemingly make such an effort to put something else down because they don’t agree with it. I don’t believe in a God, but I wouldn’t choose to go onto a thread talking about God and experiences people have had and say “it’s a load of bollocks”.

We’re all entitled to opinions and believe me I have many on all sorts of things I just don’t feel the need to go out of my way to put a negative spin on something somebody else does for THEIR own piece of mind or wellbeing! If it helps them or works for them WHO AM I to tell them what’s bollocks?! Most importantly, I don’t care! I can’t see how or why some people on here have got so bent out of shape about it! I haven’t argued with anybody that “crystals work and you’re narrow minded for not willing to try them!!!” I can understand why people don’t buy into it and I’m completely cool with it, but why can’t people just be cool with those who DO believe it?! If I’m being respectful enough to say “you do you” I think I should get that respect back.

Sometimes on MN it seems people have an opinion and can’t BARE to not post it! Maybe I’m naive but as mentioned numerous times in my posts on this thread, this was supposed to be a fun and interesting discussion! If you think it’s bollocks why join in?! Surely that’s just wasting your own time! But everybody has an opinion and is allowed to air it, I just can’t think of a single time I’ve come onto this site and come across a post I disagree with and thought “I’ll get involved in that” and “that’s something worth wasting time on” but that’s personal preference I guess!

As for the ethics behind crystals, that’s a whole other story and something I myself need to look into more because that does concern me after reading some comments. They were constructive and helpful. Calling bullshit for the sake of calling bullshit wasn’t constructive for me as that’s not what I asked in the OP. I asked if anybody had experiences, if your answer was no surely that meant it wasn’t the post for you!

YANBU it's not my cup of tea but the mind is a complex thing and belief goes a long way. If someone really believes crystals are helping them psychologically tfair play to them!

I do have a few healing crystals because one if my friends is in to them and bought them as gifts. I think they are pretty and at the very least its calming to look at them!

And both my husband and I work/worked in mental health for the NHS and we certainly would not discourage use of healing crystals in most circumstances. We used to have some come and do reiki on the ward I was working on at one point, many of the patients really found it helpful!

The problem for me in 'you do you' is that it sets up the premise that every belief is equal to every other belief. So a belief in God, crystals, fairies, flat-earth, conspiracies and homeopathy is EQUAL to a 'belief' in science, statistics, evolution and fact-based assessment.

That has led to people thinking it's OK to weight debate the same way. There are 100 climate change scientist for every one denier, but they are invited to debate on TV with one on each side. Ditto vaccinations, abortion, Brexit.

Woolly disprovable belief is contributing to a general loss of critical thinking, which is really harmful. That's why we come on here and ruin everyone's day!

But the placebo effect works, even when people know it's the placebo effect. So why not celebrate it for what it is instead of pretending there's something else going on? You did in fact ask, "AIBU to think that crystals really do heal the mind?!" And the answer is yes.

I'm actually really interested in the idea of prescribing placebos. There is debate amongst HCPs and psychologists about the ethics of this. They work, they have no side effects (barring nocebo effect) and are cheap. They also mean you can send Bob away with a bag of sugar pills when he wants antibiotics, because they will have the same effect on his virus.

I do muse that maybe the NHS prescribing homeopathy and reiki is doing this by stealth.

MrsTerryPratcett I have never used a crystal in replacement of modern medicine.

Listen, we can go back and forth ALL DAY LONG about it... the fact of the matter is I just do not agree that if I feel I’m having some sort of negative feeling towards something and talking to my friends isn’t helping me see things in a different way so I decide to hold a bit of rock that somehow makes me an unreasonable person.

I’m not encouraging anybody to do it in replacement of taking a pill or seeing a trained therapist. But in my opinion it’s absolutely ridiculous to call somebody unreasonable because they don’t want to phone a doctor every time they feel angry/upset/irritable/whatever it may be!

I’m trying to understand your point of view but you seem to act as if I’m saying if I was diagnosed with cancer I’d sit there with a crystal and accept to recover, or have a car crash and put a crystal on my broken leg and watch it heal over night. All I do is hold a blooming crystal if I’m in a certain mood j can’t shift. Maybe it’s the placebo effect!?!?! But I think they’re beautiful and even looking at them makes me happy.

I’m more or less done with this thread now really! I’ll say it one last time... this was intended as a fun and interesting post and I think I’ve been more than “reasonable” even when it’s been suggested I’m a loony and it’s a load of bollocks!

You don’t like crystals? Understood. You somehow think I’m being unreasonable and destroying the world? Understood. I have a fun weekend planned so I’m going to go and enjoy it now (with my crystals )

I think one thing we forget about ourselves is that humans are a very social animal, and we thrive when we get attention and feel someone cares.
I believe that reiki works in that way, so having someone paying attention for you for an hour makes you feel like you are cared for and more likely to survive.
There’s lots of research about this in babies so I don’t see why it wouldn’t work as an adult.

My friend is a gp in a deprived area and says that 80% of her clients are simply lonely and feel like no one cares. This can present itself in a physical ailment that the patient feels far more comfortable going to the gp about.

I don’t think it’s the sugar pills that make someone feel better as much as having someone listen to you about your pain and then doing something to acknowledge it.

This is how I use my crystals. It’s an acknowledgement that I feel I need something and I use them to work out what it is. It’s a tool.

I like crystals but I wouldn’t say I “believe” in them. When I had PND and was about to go back to work, and was terrified about itv on impulse I went into a local woo shop. I ended up having a sort of psychic reading and buying a load of crystals to use as a grounding influence. I did a lot of weird things at that time but that was an interesting one!

I do muse that maybe the NHS prescribing homeopathy and reiki is doing this by stealth.

No. It’s perfectly possible to suggest an alternative remedy whilst also making clear it’s not a proven drug. The doctor who did acupunture on me (GP, booked me double appointment) was very clear that there were no proven ‘results’.

Discussing meditation aids with a psychiatrist I was very much encouraged to use them (there’s some evidence that if you can convince people to, E.g., rub crystals on their skin, that reduces self harm). However it was couched in the language of ‘self-care’ - arranging crystals and meditating with them counts as taking time to do something you believe to be positive for your health, in the same vein as...oh I dunno, baking. Knitting. The point is not what you are doing it’s whether the thing you are doing is relaxing and does not lead to physical harm.

Initiating self care with someone who is no longer washing, eating much, etc etc is not a case of saying ‘phew you pong, go wash’. It’s about finding a pleasant ‘in’, a physical input that is rewarding. Stuff like the ‘glow’ people report after having Reiki is ideal for that kind of thing - it’s low impact (Reiki they don’t even touch you) but it can be the trigger to reward rather than punish your body. To eat something. Maybe brush your teeth.

In my experience, doctors do not ‘prescribe’ these things in the same language they do drugs. They suggest and encourage, in a conversation that is much more general than a drug conversation. It is really, really important that doctors recognise the impact of having these general holistic conversations about whole body health and if the scientific evidence behind the placebo effect encourages that, then good.

“ don’t think it’s the sugar pills that make someone feel better as much as having someone listen to you about your pain and then doing something to acknowledge it.”
This. Absolutely this.

The problem arises when the listening and acknowledging is buried in anti scientific, expensive, exploitative nonsense. It’s empowering to show people how they can help themselves and each other. It’s not empowering to tell them that sugar pills or “energy” or whatever can heal them.

The problem arises when the listening and acknowledging is buried in anti scientific, expensive, exploitative nonsense. It’s empowering to show people how they can help themselves and each other. It’s not empowering to tell them that sugar pills or “energy” or whatever can heal them.

Yes I agree. It would be much better if we were honest as a society and said ‘many people are in pain because they feel disconnected, let’s create a something to make people feel heard and part of society’

I believe that reiki works in that way, so having someone paying attention for you for an hour makes you feel like you are cared for and more likely to survive.

This is in fact what 70%+ of the counselling relationship relies on for its success. Personally, I don't much care if it's dressed up in fancy woo togs, I think it's more important to deal with people as they are rather than as you'd rather they were.

So how do we do this? How do we get people the care and attention they need without buying into the exploitative anti science crap?

“I think it's more important to deal with people as they are rather than as you'd rather they were”

But honesty is important too.as I said, it’s not empowering to tell people sugar pills will cure them.

They work because they are beautiful, nice to the touch and you BELIEVE they work. Therefore they work. I can totally see how it would help someone feel calm.

I have the same effect when I focus on the flowers and touch the long grasses in my garden. The flowers smell beautiful and look beautiful. The grasses feel amazing. It makes me calm.

There is no magic or healing vibrations about it. Just people connecting with something that pleases the senses. I think it’s that simple.

If a condition can be cured or improved via placebo, then placebo is an appropriate prescription.
If it can't - then it's entirely inappropriate to suggest it might / could / will.

That isn't to say that all of science knows all the answers - it clearly doesn't and probably never will. There is plenty left to learn, but this opens up doors for snake oil sales. Claims of 'powers science has yet to fully understand' etc. There's a difference between something that is demonstrably and predictably true that cannot yet be fully explained and one which can't even be demonstrated reliably in the first place.

Sometimes I feel better after good old English breakfast. But it's not the fry-up that's cured me. I've satisfied a craving and I feel good for a while.
If I could only get the NHS to fund a full English...

They work because they are beautiful, nice to the touch and you BELIEVE they work. Therefore they work. I can totally see how it would help someone feel calm.

I know precisely what you're saying here, but I have to make a point - it's a very important one.
It's the faith in something that works, not the actual 'thing'. It might not seem like an important distinction, but it is critical.

You're quite right to point out later that there is no magic. It's just the above sentence, especially the 'therefore they work' part I wanted to pick up on.

But honesty is important too.as I said, it’s not empowering to tell people sugar pills will cure them.

When did anyone ever tell you that the vast majority of counselling is about simply having someone impartial listen to you? They don't tell you that when you sign up, no GP has ever told me that. I know because I have a degree in it and they told us in our 3rd year. It applies regardless of methods used, e.g. CBT, client-centred etc. And yet you will find any number of people recommending it because it works or might work.

So, as far as I'm concerned, if someone want to hold a crystal and feel better, they should go for it. If someone wants to take sugar pills for cancer, they need immediate intervention. There's a balance to be found somewhere here. If you just piss all over people's woo chips, it makes them even more unlikely to seek conventional medical methods.

lololol woo chips

That's the phrase of the week by a country mile. Love it.