Understanding The Placebo Effect In Complementary Medicine

As the placebo effect continues to elicit passionate debate, this book tackles issues of the placebo effect in complementary medicine, and is targeted to both the experienced practitioner and the new student.

Can Evidence Based Medicine (EBM) and Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) find common ground? A distinguished historian of medicine, John S. Haller Jr., explores the epistemological foundations of EBM and the challenges these conceptual tools present for both conventional and alternative therapies. As he explores a possible reconciliation between their conflicting approaches, Haller maintains a healthy, scientific skepticism yet finds promise in select complementary and alternative (CAM) therapies. Haller elucidates recent research on the placebo effect and shows how a new engagement between EBM and CAM might lead to a more productive medical practice that includes both the objectivity of evidence-based medicine and the subjective truth of the physician-patient relationship. Haller's book tours key topics in the standoff between EBM and CAM: how and why the double blinded, randomized clinical trial (RCT) came to be considered the gold standard in modern medicine; the challenge of postmodern medicine as it counters the positivism of evidence-based medicine; and the politics of modern CAM and the rise of the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine. He conducts an in-depth case study of homeopathy, explaining why it has emerged as a poster-child for CAM, and assesses CAM's popularity despite its poor performance in clinical trials. Haller concludes with hope, showing how new experimental protocols might tease out the evidentiary basis for the placebo effect and establish a foundation for some reconciliation between EBM and CAM.

Can we really cure ourselves of disease by the power of thought alone? Faith healers and alternative therapists are convinced that we can, but what does science say? Contrary to public perception, orthodox medical opinion is remarkably confident about the healing powers of the mind. For the past fifty years, doctors have been taught that placebos such as sugar pills and water injections can relieve virtually any kind of medical condition. Yet placebos only work if you believe they work, so the medical confidence in the power of the placebo effect has provided scientific legitimacy to popular claims about the healing power of the mind. In this intriguing exploration, Dylan Evans exposes the flaws in the scientific research into the placebo effect and reveals the limits of what can and cannot be cured by thought alone. Drawing on new ideas in immunology and evolutionary biology, Evans proposes a new theory about how placebos work, and asks some searching questions about our concepts of health and disease

Psychodynamic psychotherapy and psychoanalysis have had to defend themselves from a barrage of criticisms throughout their history. In this book David Jopling argues that the changes achieved through therapy are really just functions of placebos that rally the mind's native healing powers. It is a bold new work that delivers yet another blow to Freud and his followers.

This is the first book to critically review the mechanisms of placebo effects across all medical conditions, diseases and therapies. It is the definitive text on the placebo effect, and will be essential for researchers and clinicians in all medical specialties.

The use of complementary therapies is exploding, increasing the pressure to establish a rigorous science to support its practice. Clinical Research in Complementary Therapies: Principles, Problems and Solutions provides students with the tools they need to research complementary and integrative medicine (CIM) and so fill this gap. Essential for both undergraduate and postgraduate students, this second edition is significantly updated and enhanced. Part 1 deals with research strategies and methods, explaining the major types of clinical research in CIM and how these inter-relate. New chapters are included on whole systems research, qualitative research and questionnaire development. Not all therapies can be treated the same way nor channeled through the signal process of randomized controlled trials. Therefore, detailed description of mixed methods approaches including observational, qualitative, cost-benefit and comparative effectiveness research are described. Part 2 deals with specific complementary therapies and how they are invested by experts in each field. The book analyses the key questions asked and the controversies debated in complementary medicine research and offers clear and innovative guidance for answering these questions. FEATURES • Provides an overarching synthesis of methods in CIM and how they are to be used collectively including the role of comparative effectiveness research • Suggests both general and specific factors which need to be considered in assessing or planning complementary therapy research • Pinpoints aspects of research which are different in orthodox research and complementary therapy research • Reviews the types of research carried out in specific complementary therapies and analyses issues which arise • Includes information on measuring the economic cost and benefits of complementary medicine, clinical audit and the role of placebos use • Builds upon recent research results, looks at the lessons these provide for all complementary therapies and suggests key issues to address in future research. • Provides an overarching synthesis of methods in CIM and how they are to be used collectively including the role of comparative effectiveness research • Suggests both general and specific factors which need to be considered in assessing or planning complementary therapy research • Pinpoints aspects of research which are different in orthodox research and complementary therapy research • Reviews the types of research carried out in specific complementary therapies and analyses issues which arise • Includes information on measuring the economic cost and benefits of complementary medicine, clinical audit and the role of placebos use • Builds upon recent research results, looks at the lessons these provide for all complementary therapies and suggests key issues to address in future research.

Beginning with a review of the role of placebos in the history of medicine, this book investigates the current surge of interest in placebos, and probes the methodological difficulties of saying scientifically just what placebos can and cannot do.

Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) is frequently conceptualized as ‘nothing but’ placebo. I will argue, and provide the evidence in this chapter, that, apart from potential specific effects, CAM is a clever way of inducing generic self-healing effects. Jerome D Frank's model serves to conceptualize this. CAM practitioners normally establish good relationships and take time to listen to their patients. They have very elaborate rituals to enact those effects. They demonstrate their prowess and they provide alternative explanatory models that make sense, at least to those patients that consult with them. Most important of all, perhaps, is the fact that nearly all CAM modalities require patients to become active, thus serving as a catalyst to mobilize resources and stimulate the experience of self-efficacy. The latter is debatedly one of the most important nonspecific effects of therapy. Hence, it is misleading to conceptualize CAM effects as nonspecific effects. Rather, it seems to be a way of activating a self-healing response that is very specific in itself, and indeed, more specific than purportedly specific pharmacologic effects.