Placebo effects have been shown in many different areas in science. Sometimes placebo effects have been shown to mimic or even exceed effects produced by active treatments (such as therapies or medications).
The definition of placebo is an inert, inactive, fake, sham, dummy, non-therapeutic, pseudo, or spurious substance or procedure presented as a treatment for any of a number of conditions.
In general, the placebo effect can be defined as a positive effect that occurs after receiving treatment (interaction, therapy, medication), even when the treatment is inert (inactive, fake).
The placebo effect is a ubiquitous phenomenon. We all experience some degree of the placebo effect on a regular basis.
Before posting, please read our blog moderation guidelines. The comments below begin with the oldest comments first. Click on the last comments page to jump to the most recent comments.
Before posting, please read our blog moderation guidelines.
Post a Comment:
Copyright © 1995-2013 Psych Central. All rights reserved.
Site last updated: 18 May 2013
|
So if we have a firm faith in the body’s power to heal itself&practice positive thinking,that would give us the benefit of placebo effect?Talking of minor ailments, would you say that drugging the body with chemicals should be avoided?Thus we can be our own doctors.But where to draw the line regarding the need for medication?
Using a placebo on someone without telling them is extremely disrespectful and should be illegal. When you seek out medical help, you expect to get it not to be toyed with and lied to.
Antidepressants are actually glorified placebos (albeit expensive ones with bad side-effects and possible long-term harm). Although this idea has gotten a lot of press lately, it’s actually been floating around for years. See, for example, this 2003 article from Mother Jones:
http://motherjones.com/politics/2003/11/it-prozac-or-placebo
See also this fascinating book (Anatomy of an Epidemic: Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs, and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America) by Robert Whitaker:
http://www.amazon.com/Anatomy-Epidemic-Bullets-Psychiatric-Astonishing/dp/0307452417
There is no mystery here. ALL medicines work by triggering natural responses in the body’s own inherent healing systems, even if only to fool those systems and quiet them, all we are doing is using chemical or biophysical information to convey a new behaviour pattern into the body’s information systems, ie, information into information, ie medicine is the art of ‘talking’ to the body so as to guide it to do our biddings. So if a chemical can ‘talk’ to the neurological or endocrine systems, if physio or other coaxing methods can ‘talk’ to the body, why is it strange that other information formats can also ‘talk’ across that gap? As the article says, ALL treatments are in part ‘placebo’ — we already knew that the information format of ideas conveyed by words, gestures, rituals and room decor can exert significant influence the outcome, otherwise we wouldn’t bother with the expense of them, would we? But we do, we call the practitioner “Doctor”, we expect them to be dressed in fineries, we expect their office to look ‘professional’ and down the line it goes right to the various control interfaces on the gear they present to us, all of it designed to convey the IDEA of healing, all of it we know we consider essential to the ritual.
So why do we diss other cultures who perhaps have found other (often less expensive) means of cognitive trickery in telling the misaligned how to get their bodies back on track?
I have used the placebo effect for many years mainly to control arthritis. I have also used it for other things but I find that some things, e.g. gallstone pain, are not suggestible to it. This may be becasuse the pain is so severe that my body cannot concentrate.
I recently read a book by Bruce Lipton, a cell biologist who suggests that all our cells receive the same information from the environment (including our brains) and act on it where possible.
I continue to rely on the placebo effect although I now live in Italy without being able to speak the language so my partner who is Italian gets the benefit of the placebo effect while I rely on a second hand version – does not work!
Placebo is evidence to suggest there is scientific merit to both mediation and karma. After all, “everything is in your head”.
Then of course we have the studies that have been produced to show that in cases of mild to moderate depression, placebo was equally affective as the horrible SSRI’s with all their dangerous side affects.
And what about those people that even “real” drugs have no or strange effects on?
I’d love to see some studies testing the placebo effect that also test various personality traits, to see if there’s any correlation. Characteristics such as suggestibility, submission to authority figures, naivete, power of imagination…