Faith healing is the attempt to heal sickness through a non-rational belief without medical means being used. This belief is usually religious, such as the belief in the healing power of the Virgin Mary by the people who make a pilgrimage to Lourdes. But people can also have faith in their doctor, even when he has no medicine to help them, or in themselves and their powers of recovery. There is perhaps some ground for believing that faith healing can affect psychosomatic illness; that it can affect organic illness is more dubious.
Definition