The logic of the randomized double-blind placebo control group design is presented, and problems with using the design in psychotherapy are discussed. Placebo effects are estimated by examining clinical trials in medicine and psychotherapy. In medicine, a recent meta-analysis of clinical trials with treatment, placebo, and no treatment arms was conducted (Hróbjartsson & Gøtzsche, 2001), and it ...

The use of placebos is the "gold standard" in studies of investigational drugs, and of other medical procedures as well. Several recent trends have suggested the use of placebos in studies of psychotherapy to isolate effective treatment components, and as a basis for establishing lists of empirically supported treatments. Unlike within the domain of medicine, in which the logic of placebos is r...

Clinical trials use placebos with the assumption that they are inert, thus all placebos are considered to be equal. Here we show that this assumption is wrong and that different placebo procedures are associated to different therapeutic rituals which, in turn, trigger different mechanisms and produce different therapeutic outcomes. We studied high altitude, or hypobaric hypoxia, headache, in wh...

Over its history, medicine has vacillated between acknowledging placebo effects as important and trying to overcome them. Placebos are controversial, in part, because they appear to challenge a biocentric view of the scientific basis of medical practice. At the very least, research should distinguish between the effects of placebos on subjective and objective endpoints. Theoretically, placebos ...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Few national data exist on physicians' use of and beliefs about placebos in routine health care. METHODS We mailed a 22-question, confidential survey about placebo use and beliefs to a random sample of 1,000 members of the American Academy of Family Physicians. RESULTS A total of 412 of 970 (43%) eligible physicians responded, and 56% of respondents said they had u...

Debates about the ethics and effects of placebos and whether ‘placebos’ 1 in clinical trials of complex treatments such as acupuncture are adequate (and hence 2 whether acupuncture is ‘truly’ effective or a ‘mere placebo’) rage. Yet there is currently 3 no widely accepted definition of the ‘placebo’. A definition of the placebo is likely 4 to inform these controversies. Grünbaum’s (1981, 1986) ...