Placebo research, laboratory-induced out of body experiences, multiple personalities, response shift, and the courage of self-sacrifice (e.g., Medal of Honor winners) point to the inadequacy of the ego/ medical model of identity and our continuing failure to change our theoretical stance despite findings, such as those shown in this article, to the contrary. The term “mind-body” helps move our thinking away from the “body-only” stance of identity that, unfortunately, is still held by too many. That “I am not my body” becomes readily apparent by looking in a mirror because the “I” stays constant as the body changes. But being a “mind-body” still seems insufficient since the word “mind” usually implies the personal. Yet, courage, our unstable opinions about our degree of quality of life, multiple egos, the de-linking of identity from the body and placebo responding all point to the distinction and differentiation of the identity from the personal body.

A more accurate description of identity may be “body-mind-Self.” This hyphenated word combination is more parsimonious with real-world experience as well. Within this context, the operational identities of both the body and the ego(s) are foreground features to the fundamental identity (Self). The psychologies of William James, Roberto Assagioli as well as the “no-fixed-self” psychologies of Buddhism and Hinduism uniformly point in this direction. Using this model, “self-sacrifice” is just the offering of a body, a modest functional instrument in the totality of the full identity (i.e., the Self) and not the sacrifice of identity. Further, placebos work because operational egoic stances are unstable, depending on opinions and beliefs, and can be swayed by authority and the wish to please or comply. The same goes for response shift in studies about quality of life (e.g., despite being terminally ill and scoring low on physical function measures some cancer patients report good quality of life).

It’s my hope the results from the Kaptchuk article will reinvigorate discussion of identity and not be discarded into the medical dust bin as an interesting oddity from a single clinical study. There is real importance to these findings since they, along with the other difficult-to-explain phenomena described above, point to the inadequacy of the basics of our psychology. These are not, pejoratively, just “interesting results” and the implications of these data are not trivial.