Placebo and The Power of the Mind in Healing

The Placebo Effect: Your Thoughts Affect Your Health

Emotions, thoughts, and health are related. The Placebo Effect is real. Placebo is the mind's ability to help us heal. "Science has recognized that at least one-third of all healings including drugs, and surgery, and other allopathic interventions, one third of all healings has nothing to do with the process but has to do with the Placebo Effect." Dr. Bruce Lipton.

"The Placebo Effect is really another way of talking about the body's self healing capacity and anything that unleashes more of that is going to be a better system." Rupert Sheldrake, Ph.D.

The real power of placebos. Harvard Health Publishing. Harvard Medical School. "The placebo effect is more than positive thinking — believing a treatment or procedure will work. It’s about creating a stronger connection between the brain and body and how they work together." Ted J. Kaptchuk, director of the Program in Placebo Studies and the Therapeutic Encounter at Harvard-affiliated Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.

Harnessing the Power of the Placebo Effect and Renaming It “Remembered Wellness”. PMID: 8712773.

BBC Documentary - Placebo Effect As Good As Surgery For Outcome In Knee Pain.

Pain, mindfulness, and placebo: a systematic review. PMC11390565. 

Integrating Placebo Effects in General Practice: A Cross-Sectional Survey to Investigate Perspectives From Health Care Professionals in the Netherlands. PMC8790122.

The placebo phenomenon and the underlying mechanisms. PMID: 32940864.

Can Insights From Placebo and Nocebo Mechanisms Studies Improve the Randomized Controlled Trial? PMID: 32609651.

The neuroscience of placebo effects: connecting context, learning and health. PMC6013051.

Placebo and Nocebo Effects: A Complex Interplay Between Psychological Factors and Neurochemical Networks.  PMID: 25928679.

The placebo effect and its ramifications for clinical practice and research. PMID: 23497808.

Placebo Effect. NBK513296.

The placebo effect and relaxation response: neural processes and their coupling to constitutive nitric oxide. PMID: 11245883. 

Placebo Effects of Different Therapies Not Identical. Not all placebos are equal, and patients who respond to one placebo don't always respond to others.

Pain and the Placebo. Despite the recent blossoming of rigorous research into placebo mechanisms and the long-standing use of placebos in clinical trials, there remains wide- spread and profound misunderstanding of the placebo response among both practicing physicians and clinical researchers.This review identifies and clarifies areas of current confusion about the placebo response (including whether it exists at all), describes its phenomenology, and outlines recent advances in our knowledge of its underlying psy- chological and neural mechanisms.The focus of the review is the placebo analgesic response rather than placebo responses in general, because much of the best established clinical and experimental work to date has been done on this type of placebo response.

Is there scientific proof that we can heal ourselves? Lissa Rankin, MD. TEDx

Lissa Rankin, MD explores the scientific literature, reviewing case studies of spontaneous remission, as well as placebo and nocebo effect data, to prove that our thoughts powerfully affect our physiology when we believe we can get well.

Placebos without Deception: A Randomized Controlled Trial in Irritable Bowel Syndrome. "Placebo treatment can significantly influence subjective symptoms. However, it is widely believed that response to placebo requires concealment or deception. We tested whether open-label placebo (non-deceptive and non-concealed administration) is superior to a no-treatment control with matched patient-provider interactions in the treatment of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS)." Placebos administered without deception were found to be significantly more effective than no treatment. PMCID: PMC3008733.

Placebo studies and ritual theory: a comparative analysis of Navajo, acupuncture and biomedical healing. PMCID: PMC3130398.

The Most Notable Medical Findings of 2015. The New Yorker Magazine.

The Power of a Placebo