Hey Gareth… Offering up prescribed placebo effect interventions is of course a huge moral and ethical issue… And us hypnotherapists have to bear in mind our duty of care and issues around informed consent. You are quite right.

However, for now, we can harness some of its power in the way we communicate and develop the notion within what we do for the good of the client.

Cheers.

Grrrr….. how can a blog and a comment stir up so many questions and ideas?

I think my personal view would be to use the placebo enhancing effects in combination that something that is scientifically proven to work.

But I’m a bit like the Fast Show character down the pub so this may change 😉

G

I thoroughly enjoyed the above post as the placebo effect is something that fascinates me. It has been around as long as pretty much everything and probably has the longest track record in all clinical trials.

I do not envy those carrying out research trying to find out if the efficacy is down to intervention or placebo.

The placebo effect is well known in the golf business. One very famous American teaching professional told me that the majority of his lessons involved no real teaching in the classical sense.

He just gave occasional words of encouragement such as “Slow down” or “That’s it” and he said almost all golfers who see him are hitting it better simply due to the fact that they have had a chance to warm up and hit more shots than they usually do.

This however would not be effective if he didn’t charge so much and be a “famous teacher”. People expected to perform better, and did!

I see now he was a placebo himself!!!!

I suppose the question is when a placebo is unethical. I know homeopaths think they actually give effective treatments, but double blind clinical trials have shown time and time again to prove it’s no more than a placebo BUT……

If the treatment proves to be more effective with the belief and TLC of the homeopath and combining/enhancing the belief of the client does this then create a “mega placebo”?

Would it be right to outlaw such a treatment even if it doesn’t work in the way it’s thought to?

(And before any homeopaths put a price on my head, read Bad Science by Ben Goldacre. It’s a placebo enhanced by belief, end of story 😉 )

I suppose what I am trying to say if when do we know if something does not work? If a double or even triple blind trial is done, I am guessing it rules out the placebo effect but in some cases maybe we need to compare the intervention compared to nothing at all?

I have now given myself a headache so will stop rambling…..plenty of food for thought from todays blog though Adam.

Cheers,

G

Thank you Richard, and thanks for the link too. Lets hope more people wake up to ways of utilising the placebo effect, eh?

There is not enough clever and well intentioned use of the Placebo effect – be that in mainstream medicine or through other therapeutic interventions.

There is a great clip of Ben Goldacre talking about the NHS and the Placebo effect here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsFTgirKXHk

Your post is full of learning. Thank you
R