Mind-body therapy use and magical thinking

Abstract

Rationale: Mind-body therapy use is an increasing social and clinical trend. Practitioners of mind-body therapies still disseminate traditional mechanistic explanations such as purification of mental or vital forces. These explanations sound similar to magical thinking, especially thought-action fusion.

Objective: The present research examined whether mind-body therapy users exhibit two related forms of magical thinking, including thought-action fusion.

Method: Two online, cross-sectional studies with U.S. participants (Study 1 N = 645; Study 2 N = 566) assessed thought-action fusion and magical causal belief, along with mind-body therapy use and potential covariates.

Results: The results from Study 1 revealed that thought-action fusion was uniquely associated with mind-body therapy use. This finding was replicated in Study 2, in which thought-action fusion was uniquely associated with past-year mind-body therapy use for psychological reasons and for pain/nausea. Additionally in Study 2, magical causal belief was uniquely associated with past-year use for pain/nausea and for physical disease.

Conclusions: Magical thinking, particularly thought-action fusion, may be associated with mind-body therapy use. Because thought-action fusion is associated with mental health vulnerabilities and magical thinking may play a role in health decision-making, these preliminary findings warrant attention.

Keywords: Beliefs; Cognition; Complementary and alternative medicine; Magical; Mind-body; Thought-action fusion.