I’ve attempted to explain The Principle of Thirds to just about every college class I’ve had – and though a third of each class may have “got it” – probably only a third of THAT third remember the implications and the gravity of The Principle of Thirds. But let me backtrack-a-bit…
It was probably sometime in 1989, or perhaps even 1990 — that Dr. Jefferson Davis, whom I took as a brilliant psychiatrist because he was on staff at USC and an eminent local hospital – not to mention that he was the son of Kingsley Davis of “Anna” fame – explained to me: The Principle of Thirds. Since Dr. J. Davis was my supervisor for a semester, and, because I’d heard that his 80-year-old-father had knocked up a 20-sumthin-year-old-bride: I figured that this family were voices worth listening to.
So one day during a supervisory session, JD told me about The Principle of Thirds. JD suggested that in-all-of-the-drug trials that he was aware of: one third of the trial population responded to the drug at the cellular level in the way in which the drug was meant to affect the human body. This one third experienced the desired result of the drug. The “second” third experienced the placebo effect. This is why JD cautioned me to always look at the label to see how well the particular drug (some people like to call them medications) – did against the placebo. JD informed me that placebos outperform prescription medications more-often-than-not (which informs a later essay on ‘the power of the human mind’). JD’s contention was later validated by the illustrious Dr. William Glasser (whom I tell my students is the greatest psychologist/psychotherapist EVER!) — when he told me that he used to have seven, rainbow-colored sugar pills for his patients at Camarillo. These patients would beg Dr. Glasser to tell them which of the seven-colored pills would be the “best” for them. Dr. Glasser would tell his patients that they were all the same sugar pill – just differently colored; one color for each day of the week. This did not stop his patients from demanding which color Dr. Glasser should choose for them. Dr. G suggested that he invariably gave into his patient’s wishes and selected the appropriately colored placebo for them.
And the third one third of any trial group (whether it be drugs, diets, rehab treatments, ad nauseam…) invariably experienced an allergic reaction to whateveritwas that they tried (everybody knows what the doctor asks you about being allergic to any medications? We forget how many people were killed by penicillin!). And speaking of doctors – Brother-in-law Bruce – whom I consider the finest urologist in the land (not only because he performed a successful vasectomy upon me without castrating me) – but also because he caused the New England Journal of Medicine to recant a study they published way-back-when. Some of my Baby Boomer readers may recall a study that suggested that men with vasectomies had an astronomically high chance (I forget the exact percentage) of contracting testicular cancer. When B-i-L Bruce reached the publishers of the study – they admitted that they only had 9 subjects in their study. Nine subjects is not enough to make sweeping, universal conclusions from I’m-sad-to-say.
So the next time you hear what they’ve said – please consider The Principle of Thirds and, check the label on the pill bottle. When Dr. Jefferson Davis told me he was leaving sunny, So Cal for Santa Fe – I said, “I could never leave the ocean – I need to be able to look out on eternity to stay humble and sane.” To which JD replied: “Ya know, they say that if you look at the desert long enough – it turns into an ocean.”