The key thing we should update on, as a society, is that placebo effects are huge (often as large as the treatment effects established for drugs in RCTs), and through specific actions, the placebo effect can be maximized.
In fact, it used to be part of a medical doctor's training to take on the mantle of an authority capable of producing placebo effects, back when they had little else to give.
The thing you really want to do, and every doctor should aim for, is to stack the placebo effect on top of a well-established treatment effect.
It's hard for people to do this to themselves, deliberately -- like turning the knob on a pressure cooker while you're inside the cooker... But obviously being credulous helps a lot!!
There is actually a literature on this, but it's adjacent to the medical journals:
Daniel Moerman describes himself as a medical anthropologist. He wrote a book called “Meaning, medicine and the ‘placebo effect' “.
In fact, it used to be part of a medical doctor's training to take on the mantle of an authority capable of producing placebo effects, back when they had little else to give.
The thing you really want to do, and every doctor should aim for, is to stack the placebo effect on top of a well-established treatment effect.
It's hard for people to do this to themselves, deliberately -- like turning the knob on a pressure cooker while you're inside the cooker... But obviously being credulous helps a lot!!
There is actually a literature on this, but it's adjacent to the medical journals:
Daniel Moerman describes himself as a medical anthropologist. He wrote a book called “Meaning, medicine and the ‘placebo effect' “.
https://www.amazon.com/Meaning-Medicine-Placebo-Cambridge-An...