Customer Reviews

The Placebo Effect: An Interdisciplinary Exploration

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I'm currently working with author and professor Andrew Newberg on the biology of belief and the neurophysiology of spiritual experience, and this book is the gold standard when it comes to understanding how this mysterious process works. Today, the question is not whether placebos work, but how they work. Depending upon the condition being treated, the effectiveness of placebo treatments can range anywhere from 0% to 100%. Pain is the most amenable to placebo treatments, which suggests that pain regulation is closely tied to the same neural mechanisms that control conscious awareness and memory. Suggestibility, expectations, conditioning, emotions, and desires also play essential roles in explaining the analgesic effects of placebo.

For illnesses involving depression and anxiety, the placebo effect accounts for a 25-35% success rate, while anti-depressant drugs only have a 35-45% success rate, according to statistics published by the drug companies themselves. This suggests to me that it is one's optimistic belief that is largely responsible for the alleviation of depressive symptoms. On the other hand, the fact that nearly two-thirds of depressed individuals do not get better may be related to deeply embedded beliefs that reflect a more pessimistic stance about the world. According to David Morris of the University of Virginia, one of the contributors to this anthology, placebos "place belief and meaning at the center of the therapeutic encounter" and that "positive beliefs in the efficacy of medication or treatment are necessary to underwrite a placebo effect, while disbelief actively subverts it."

Positive beliefs had the power to heal, whereas negative beliefs had the power to injure, and this framework can be applied to spiritual beliefs as well. One can even speculate that those who do not inherit a bias towards optimistic beliefs are less likely to survive and pass on their genes to others.

The power of placebo goes a long way to explain a variety of health claims made in the fields of alternative medicine and psychotherapy, for it may be the mutually-agreed-upon belief systems of both the patient and the doctor that accounts for the high degree of success achieved. Unfortunately, this also opens the door to considerable fraud, for a person can market a bottle of water and claim to have a 30% to a 100% success rate in treating an almost endless list of symptoms. In a similar manner, fads are successful because a large amount of people concurrently agree that the object of the fad is beneficial. You not only have the power of belief on your side, but you have the power of consensus as well.

This collection of essays, while now a bit dated, still has much to offer if you are interested in this topic. The contributors have excellent credentials, varied perspectives and different points of view. This is a fresh change from just hearing the mantra of one author's spin on the placebo effect over and over in their book. If you want to really understand the placebo effect, I believe that you really have to have an open mind. This book can help you in that endeavor.

This book is a fascinating account of the placebo effect. Placebos have always been something of a thorn in the side of medical expertise--something to be avoided or dismissed. Anne Harrington's book tackles the issue directly. It is based on a conference that took place at Harvard University, sponsored by the Harvard Mind, Brain, Behavior Interfaculty Initiative. It debunks much of what we commonly believe. The whole notion of what is "real" and what is "not real" is called into question. Placebos work, and they often work as well as pharmaceuticals. Harrington is a historian of science, but the book includes contributions by neurologists, neurobiologists, psychologists and a gastroenterologist. I found the interdisciplinary conversations at the end of the book to be especially fascinating.

I used this book for science project research. I found it tremendously helpful although in some places a little hard to follow for a high schooler.

This one is a great read especially for those interested in the power of the mind. Great study information as well to back up some of the rumors out there. I found the "Nocebo" one of the most interesting parts of this book.