The Power of Visualization

Summary & Participants

Have you ever thought about your favorite dessert and started to salivate? You may not have known it, but you were practicing visualization. This technique of mind over body may be used to help treat a range of medical conditions, from warts to cancer. Join our panel of experts as they discuss this powerful mind-body technique.

Medically Reviewed On: June 18, 2000

Webcast Transcript

DAVID FOLK THOMAS: Welcome to our webcast. I'm David Folk Thomas, and the topic today is visualization. Have you ever told somebody you're not feeling well and they look at you and say, "Oh, come on, be positive. Use your mind over matter." Well, they're not as off-base as you might think. It's not that farfetched. It's actually the essence of visualization. That's when you use the mind to influence the body.

Joining me today, a couple of experts, Dr. Ben Kligler, sitting on my left. He's the medical director of the New Beth Israel Center for Health and Healing in New York City. Sitting next to him is Aurora Ocampo. She's a clinical nurse specialist at Beth Israel Center for Health and Healing. Welcome to you both.

I'll start with you, Dr. Kligler, because you are sitting right next to me. Why don't you just explain in a nutshell what visualization is?

DR. BENJAMIN KLIGLER: I think you started off with a good explanation. It's part of a whole group of modalities, including imagery, meditation, relaxation therapies, that are based on the notion that the power of the mind is very potent and that you can use the power of the mind to influence all kinds of physical problems.

DAVID FOLK THOMAS: Give an example of that, just a general example, right off the bat. We'll get more into detail later.

DR. BENJAMIN KLIGLER: One of my best examples is with children. I see children in my practice. When children have warts on a knee, on a hand, anywhere on their body -- which is a common childhood problem -- you can actually eliminate warts by using the power of the imagination. It's a little bit complicated telling you how that works exactly, but basically you use a visual image to help the body muster its defenses against the virus that's causing the wart, and it works like a charm.

DAVID FOLK THOMAS: I'm going to play the skeptic here and say, "Now, how on earth is that possible?" Let's take Dr. Kligler's wart example. Can you get into a little bit of how that might be possible?

AURORA OCAMPO: When we do visualization, what happens is, first, before we do that we put the patient, the client, into a very relaxed state and then do the visualization. When somebody's so relaxed, what happens is a lot of chemicals, hormones, are produced in our body. I'm sure you're familiar with endorphins. You have serotonin. When that happens, the body's own innate capacity to heal is activated.

DAVID FOLK THOMAS: So these bad chemicals, say, could be causing the wart or preventing the wart from --

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