醫學人類學一般用安慰劑效應來解釋非理性醫療體系發揮治療作用的原因，卻忽視了巫醫療法中藝術要素發揮的獨特功能。許多現代藝術治療依據的心理學規律早已被采用藝術療法的巫醫經驗性地掌握。巫醫在藝術治療的過程中，常常依靠幻覺與超自然力量溝通，從而診斷和治療疾病。幻覺經驗的獲得，和人類的兩種心理能力密切相關:出神與積極想象。藝術刺激了這兩種心理能力的形成，最終導致巫醫求幻成功。

Medical Anthropology usually attributes the effect of irrational medical systems to placebo effect,but ignores the special effect of art factors in magician doctors’ therapies. Many psychological rules on the basis that modern art therapies are built have been mastered by the magicians who use arts as therapies. In the process of art therapies,magicians usually diagnose and cure illness by communicating with supernatural forces through hallucinations. To get hallucinations experience is in connection with two psychological abilities of human beings: trance and active imagination. Arts stimulate the formation of these two abilities and result in the success of seeking for hallucinations.