Abstract
It is widely believed that medically inert treatments (“placebos”) can bring about therapeutic benefits. There is also evidence that medically active treatments may also have “placebo” effects. Since anything that has the potential to benefit patients ought to be exploited, subject to appropriate ethical standards, it has been suggested that more should be done to investigate and exploit the power of the placebo for therapeutic benefit. I explore the acute epistemic and ethical constraints that such exploitation is likely to face, and conclude that effective exploitation is unlikely.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Ader, R. (1997) The Role of Conditioning in Pharmacotherapy. In Harrington (Ed.), The Placebo Effect: An Interdisciplinary Exploration (pp. 138–165). Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Beecher, H.K. (1955) The Powerful Placebo. Journal of the American Medical Association 159, 1602–1606.
Blackwell, B., Bloomfield, S., and Buncher C. (1972) Demonstration to Medical Students of Placebo Responses. Lancet 1(763), 1279–1282.
Brody, H. (1980) Placebos and the Philosophy of Medicine: Clinical, Conceptual, and Ethical Issues. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Gliedman, M.A., Gantt, W., and Teitelbaum H. (1957) Some Implications of Conditional Reflex Studies for Placebo Research. American Journal of Psychiatry 113, 1103–1107.
Grenfell, R., Briggs, A., and Holland W. (1961) A Double-Blind Study of the Treatment of Hypertension. Journal of the American Medical Association 176, 124–128.
Harrington, A. (Ed.) (1997) The Placebo Effect: An Interdisciplinary Exploration. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Houston, W.R. (1938) The Doctor Himself as a Therapeutic Agent. Annals of Internal Medicine 11, 1416–1425.
Hróbjartsson, A., and Gøtzsche P. (2001) Is the Placebo Powerless?— An Analysis of Clinical Trials Comparing Placebo with No Treatment. New England Journal of Medicine 344, 1594–1602.
Hull, J.G., and Bond, C. (1986) Social and Behavioural Consequences of Alcohol Consumption and Expectancy: A Meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin 99, 347–360.
Kleinman, A.M., Eisenberg, L., and Good, B. (1978) Culture, Illness and Care: Clinical lessons from Anthropological and Cross-cultural Research. Annals of Internal Medicine 88, 251–258.
Kirsch, I. (Ed.) (1999) How Expectancies Shape Experience. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
Moerman, D. (2002) Meaning, Medicine and the “Placebo Effect.” Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Morton, V., and Torgerson, D. (2003) Effect of Regresssion to the Mean on Decision Making in Health Care. British Medical Journal 326, 1083–1084.
Pickering, T.G., James, G.D., Boddie, C., Harshfield, G.A., Blank, S., and Laragh, J.H. (1988) How Common is White Coat Hypertension? Journal of the American Medical Association 259, 225–228.
Shapiro, A.K. (1964) Etiological Factors in Placebo Effect. Journal of the American Medical Association 187, 712–714.
Sloane, R.B., Staples, F.R., Cristol, A.H., and Yorkston, N.J. (1975) Short-term Analytically Oriented Psychotherapy Versus Behaviour Therapy. American Journal of Psychiatry 132, 373–377.
Stewart, M.A. (1995) Effective-Physician-Patient Communication and Health Outcomes: A Review. Canadian Medical Association Journal 152, 1423–1433.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Cheyne, C. Exploiting Placebo Effects for Therapeutic Benefit. Health Care Anal 13, 177–188 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10728-005-6444-x
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10728-005-6444-x