# "See Clearly Method" -- Legit or not **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 23, 2003, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/see-clearly-method-legit-or-not/190412 "2003-07-23T17:07:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Nobody](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/94ad74/32.png) [@Nobody](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nobody)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2003, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/see-clearly-method-legit-or-not/190412/1 "2003-07-23T17:07:10Z")
I’ve heard commercials for the “See Clearly Method” on the radio a lot. And while I have no vision problems, I’m still curious if it’s legit or not. [http://www.seeclearlymethod.com/](http://www.seeclearlymethod.com/) I don’t see how it could be, but, maybe it is. ---
**Author:** ![Q.E.D](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/51bf81/32.png) [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2003, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/see-clearly-method-legit-or-not/190412/2 "2003-07-23T17:12:32Z")
> [@](#): > > **No formal research studies have been done yet** on the See Clearly Method. However, the doctors who created the See Clearly Method conducted a clinical evaluation on the program (see below). In addition, more than 1,500 articles and research papers have been published supporting the principles and techniques that are the basis of the See Clearly Method. **You can get a copy of this listing (“Bibliography of Near Lenses and Vision Training Research”) from the Optometric Extension Program Foundation for $25**. No clinical studies, AND you have to pay to see the “proof” it works? I think not. Bolding mine. ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2003, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/see-clearly-method-legit-or-not/190412/3 "2003-07-23T17:28:55Z")
From [Quackwatch](http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/eyequack.html) > [@](#): > > Many self-help books are aimed at people who want to improve their eyes “naturally” without glasses. They include Dr. Friedman’s Vision Training Program, Lisette Scholl’s Visionetics: The Holistic Way to Better Eyesight, Taber’s Eye-Robics, and Dr. Salov’s Hidden Secrets for Better Vision. Similar claims are made on the Web site of the American Vision Institute (AVI), which markets the See Clearly Method “to help you” “eliminate or reduce” nearsightedness, farsightedness, astigmatism, presbyopia, and eyestrain. The program is based on Bates and other vision training methods. The See Clearly claims are peppered with “may” and “it depends” and supported by testimonials preceded by the disclaimer “(Results not typical; individual results will vary.)” The first sentence of the See Clearly research page states that “No formal research studies have been done yet on the See Clearly Method.” This is despite the fact that AVI, founded in 1979, describes itself as "dedicated to research."All of these programs are long on claims and short on evidence that any of them will actually improve the user’s vision. Quackwatch is a good site. ---
**Author:** ![Nobody](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/94ad74/32.png) [@Nobody](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nobody)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2003, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/see-clearly-method-legit-or-not/190412/4 "2003-07-24T00:26:25Z")
Thanks. I thought it sounded a little too good to be true. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Kentzel-Griffin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ccd318/32.png) [@John\_Kentzel-Griffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Kentzel-Griffin)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2003, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/see-clearly-method-legit-or-not/190412/5 "2003-07-24T04:34:18Z")
It helps to have descriptive titles. I’ve changed the title for you. Please try to use more descriptive titles in the future. **DrMatrix** - GQ Moderator ---
**Author:** ![Nobody](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/94ad74/32.png) [@Nobody](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nobody)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2003, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/see-clearly-method-legit-or-not/190412/6 "2003-07-24T04:55:10Z")
My apologies. Yeah, I did the same thing with another thread, I wasn’t descriptive enough with the title. Anyway, sorry about that, and it I’ll be more descriptive in the future. ---
**Author:** ![Bongmaster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Bongmaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bongmaster)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2003, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/see-clearly-method-legit-or-not/190412/7 "2003-07-24T16:35:00Z")
The best indicator on things like this, IMHO, are if people are using them successfully or not. Since 60 minutes, Good Morning America, and all the other rabid news shows have nothing to say about it, I tend to write it off as garbage. ---
**Author:** ![slipster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/df705f/32.png) [@slipster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slipster)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2003, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/see-clearly-method-legit-or-not/190412/8 "2003-07-24T22:15:30Z")
I am not a doctor. With that said: The shape of the eye and, in particular, the curvature of the cornea, affect the way light is refracted on its path to the optic nerve. This is simple physics. It is readily observable. It is the principle underlying corrective lens prescriptions for nearsightedness, farsightedness, and astigmatism, among other problems. The various methods for improving vision cited above work on the theory that vision problems can be corrected via exercise. The problem with this is that developing the muscles surrounding the eye will not change the curvture of the lens. The great pioneer in these crank movements was William Horatio Bates, an opthamologist who developed a radical new theory of eyesight in the early 20th Century. He developed a complex series of exercises to correct vision problems. Oddly, though, he actually claimed that the shape of the eye did not affect eyesight. Instead, he said that vision problems were psychosomatic. So: you correct the shape of the eye by doing exercises which can’t really correct the shape of the eye, and these changes which don’t happen, in turn, correct eyesight problems which (so the theory goes) have nothing to do with the shape of the eye in the first place. Unaccountably, my high school library had a copy of one of Bates’ books. My best friend in high school–this was back in the early 70s, worked religiously at the Bates exercises, such as “cupping”; this involves staring into the palm of your hand while it is held up to the eye. For a time, IIRC, he was convinced his eyesight was improving. I haven’t talked to him for a couple of years, but the last time we ran into each other, he was still as nearsighted as all hell. I recall reading once that Bates based some of his ideas on dissections of the eyes of fish. Unfortunately, the eye of a fish differs radically from the eye of a human, and uses a different method to focus. It has been suggested that if did have the eye of a fish then you could improve your eyes doing the Bates exercises. Unfortunately, you would also have the eye muscles of a fish, and that would render doing the exercises impossible. I don’t have a cite for this, but believe it may be in The New Apocrypha by John Thomas Sladek. The general consensus of the medical community is that the only thing that gets exercised in these eyesight improvement programs is the imagination. Aldous Huxley was an ardent supporter of Bates, and Bennett Cerf told a pathetic story about a lecture by Huxley he attended. Huxley had the text of his speech laid out before him at the podium. He did not wear glasses, and he stood erect as he spoke smoothly, telling about how his vision had been corrected so that he no longer needed glasses. Then he started to falter. It soon became apparent to Cerf and pretty much everyone else that he wasn’t reading the speech at all, but was merely using it as a prop as he recited from memory. Eventually he had to pick the speech up and hold it within a few inches of his face as he strained and squinted, slowly picking out the words on the printed page as he explained how his eyesight was perfect. Nearsightedness typically has its onset in youth; I first needed glasses because of myopia when I was twelve, which is fairly typical. As I have grown older, my eyesight has improved, as the changes which naturally occur in the eye with age have caused my nearsightedness to lessen. This is just a guess, but I suspect that a lot of people who undertake an improvement program notice a marginal improvement in their eyes and ascribe it to exercises, even though the changes in their eyesight are happening naturally. ---
**Author:** ![MsRobyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/90ced4/32.png) [@MsRobyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsRobyn)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2003, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/see-clearly-method-legit-or-not/190412/9 "2003-07-24T23:45:41Z")
My mother, who suffers from multiple sclerosis and whose vision is deteriorating from that disease, bought the See Clearly Method tapes and asked me to do the exercises with her. She swears she got some improvement out of it, but it seems to me that any improvement is subjective and probably due to the placebo effect. When I did them with her, all I got was a headache. I have a fairly bad case of farsightedness, so it’s not as though I was starting with normal vision. Some of the exercises depend on focusing back and forth on near and far objects fairly quickly, and that probably contributed to the eyestrain. I don’t know if she still does the exercises or not, but considering the fairly high expense, it’s probably not worth it. JMO, of course. YMMV. Robin ---
**Author:** ![raygirvan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ac91a4/32.png) [@raygirvan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/raygirvan)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2003, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/see-clearly-method-legit-or-not/190412/10 "2003-07-25T00:40:29Z")
_Bates exercises, such as “cupping”; this involves staring into the palm of your hand while it is held up to the eye_ Hurmm. One comment I’ve heard about this is that it keeps your eye in the dark for a while, so when you stop doing it, the pupil contracts on exposure to light so you get a brief improvement in vision by pinhole camera effect.