Can faith heal?

Belief in the healing power of faith is widespread, and is receiving new support because of the holistic health movement. However, reports of faith healing are uncommon and always involve changes in symptoms rather than in disease. Unanticipated remissions probably occur more frequently than they are reported, but often they may be ascribed to misdiagnosis or to the fact that disease progresses more slowly than expected or even regresses in some patients. When they are sick, patients are more likely to pray and to seek spiritual assistance, and such improvements in their health may thus seem to result from faith. Faith-especially an uncritical acceptance of medical authority-sometimes has negative effects. Patients' unquestioning compliance is not trust; it is an abdication of personal responsibility. Physicians also must maintain a healthy skepticism so that they do not accept all medical explanations without questioning them.