Talking Cures and Placebo Effects

Talking Cures and Placebo Effects PDF Author: David A. Jopling
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199239509
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 333

Book Description
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.

Placebo Effects: The Meaning of Care in Medicine

Placebo Effects: The Meaning of Care in Medicine PDF Author: Pekka Louhiala
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030273296
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 141

Book Description
This book provides a perspective on the concepts placebo and placebo effects, which has been missing so far: a detailed analysis of the history of the terms, their current use, suggested alternatives and the implications of the conceptual confusion. Everybody knows something about placebos and placebo effects. If, however, people are asked to define the concepts, the spectrum becomes wide. Does 'placebo' refer to an inert treatment or does it cover all elements of the patient-physician-interaction except for pharmacological or other physiological mechanisms? Furthermore, if, by definition, a placebo has no effect, what sense does it make to talk about a 'placebo effect'? Even in scientific literature the concepts ‘placebo’ and ‘placebo effect’ are used in many senses and often in a confusing way. While this book discusses many issues which keep puzzling physicians, it also covers the historical developments of the concepts of placebo and placebo effect as well as the conceptual confusion in the definitions. This book is intended for physicians, philosophers, psychologists and any other people interested in placebos, placebo effects and the physician-patient relationship.

Cure

Cure PDF Author: Jo Marchant
Publisher: Crown
ISBN: 0385348169
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 320

Book Description
A rigorous, skeptical, deeply reported look at the new science behind the mind's surprising ability to heal the body. Have you ever felt a surge of adrenaline after narrowly avoiding an accident? Salivated at the sight (or thought) of a sour lemon? Felt turned on just from hearing your partner's voice? If so, then you've experienced how dramatically the workings of your mind can affect your body. Yet while we accept that stress or anxiety can damage our health, the idea of "healing thoughts" was long ago hijacked by New Age gurus and spiritual healers. Recently, however, serious scientists from a range of fields have been uncovering evidence that our thoughts, emotions and beliefs can ease pain, heal wounds, fend off infection and heart disease and even slow the progression of AIDS and some cancers. In Cure, award-winning science writer Jo Marchant travels the world to meet the physicians, patients and researchers on the cutting edge of this new world of medicine. We learn how meditation protects against depression and dementia, how social connections increase life expectancy and how patients who feel cared for recover from surgery faster. We meet Iraq war veterans who are using a virtual arctic world to treat their burns and children whose ADHD is kept under control with half the normal dose of medication. We watch as a transplant patient uses the smell of lavender to calm his hostile immune system and an Olympic runner shaves vital seconds off his time through mind-power alone. Drawing on the very latest research, Marchant explores the vast potential of the mind's ability to heal, lays out its limitations and explains how we can make use of the findings in our own lives. With clarity and compassion, Cure points the way towards a system of medicine that treats us not simply as bodies but as human beings. A New York Times Bestseller Finalist for the Royal Society Insight Investment Science Book Prize Longlisted for the Wellcome Book Prize

The Healing Virtues

The Healing Virtues PDF Author: Duff Waring
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199689148
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 241

Book Description
Explores the intersection of psychotherapy and virtue ethics with an emphasis on the patient's work in a healing project. This common ground between the therapeutic process and the cultivation of virtues can inform the efforts of both therapist and patient. The ethics of psychotherapy revolve partly around what a therapist should or should not do as well as the sort of person that a therapist should be: e.g., empathic, prudent, compassionate, respectful, and trustworthy. The ethics of a therapeutic dialogue can also revolve around the sort of person a patient should be. This work pforwardward an argument for patient virtues that are crucially relevant to psychotherapy, e.g., honesty, perseverance, and hopefulness. The author's central idea is that treatment may need to build virtues while it ameliorates problems. As a virtue epistemic and virtue ethical endeavor, a psychotherapeutic healing project can both challenge a patient's character and result in its further development.

Suggestible You

Suggestible You PDF Author: Erik Vance
Publisher: National Geographic Books
ISBN: 1426217897
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 290

Book Description
National Geographic's riveting narrative explores the world of placebos, hypnosis, false memories, and neurology to reveal the groundbreaking science of our suggestible minds. Could the secrets to personal health lie within our own brains? Journalist Erik Vance explores the surprising ways our expectations and beliefs influence our bodily responses to pain, disease, and everyday events. Drawing on centuries of research and interviews with leading experts in the field, Vance takes us on a fascinating adventure from Harvard's research labs to a witch doctor's office in Catemaco, Mexico, to an alternative medicine school near Beijing (often called "China's Hogwarts"). Vance's firsthand dispatches will change the way you think--and feel. Expectations, beliefs, and self-deception can actively change our bodies and minds. Vance builds a case for our "internal pharmacy"--the very real chemical reactions our brains produce when we think we are experiencing pain or healing, actual or perceived. Supporting this idea is centuries of placebo research in a range of forms, from sugar pills to shock waves; studies of alternative medicine techniques heralded and condemned in different parts of the world (think crystals and chakras); and most recently, major advances in brain mapping technology. Thanks to this technology, we're learning how we might leverage our suggestibility (or lack thereof) for personalized medicine, and Vance brings us to the front lines of such study.

The Already Dead

The Already Dead PDF Author: Eric Cazdyn
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 0822352281
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 241

Book Description
This book considers how a culture of crisis management&—what Cazdyn calls "the new chronic"&— has come to dominate all aspects of contemporary life, from biomedicine to economics to politics. Drawing from his own experiences battling leukemia and the subsequent effects of his illness on the process of becoming a Canadian citizen, Cazdyn unravels the logic of the new chronic where people find themselves suspended in a space between life and death.

Placebo and Nocebo Effects in Psychiatry and Beyond

Placebo and Nocebo Effects in Psychiatry and Beyond PDF Author: Paul Enck
Publisher: Frontiers Media SA
ISBN: 2889660486
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 398

Book Description
This eBook is a collection of articles from a Frontiers Research Topic. Frontiers Research Topics are very popular trademarks of the Frontiers Journals Series: they are collections of at least ten articles, all centered on a particular subject. With their unique mix of varied contributions from Original Research to Review Articles, Frontiers Research Topics unify the most influential researchers, the latest key findings and historical advances in a hot research area! Find out more on how to host your own Frontiers Research Topic or contribute to one as an author by contacting the Frontiers Editorial Office: frontiersin.org/about/contact.

Placebo Talks

Placebo Talks PDF Author: Amir Raz
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199680701
Category : Antidepressants
Languages : en
Pages : 291

Book Description
This volume provides various perspectives on how psychosocial parameters - such as interpersonal rapport, historical and contemporary context, corporate memory, expectation, empathy, hope, conditioning, symbolic thinking and suggestion - play a role in forming placebo responses and placebo effects.

The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Psychiatry

The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Psychiatry PDF Author: KWM Fulford
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191666793
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 1344

Book Description
Philosophy has much to offer psychiatry, not least regarding ethical issues, but also issues regarding the mind, identity, values, and volition. This has become only more important as we have witnessed the growth and power of the pharmaceutical industry, accompanied by developments in the neurosciences. However, too few practising psychiatrists are familiar with the literature in this area. The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Psychiatry offers the most comprehensive reference resource for this area ever published. It assembles challenging and insightful contributions from key philosophers and others to the interactive fields of philosophy and psychiatry. Each contributions is original, stimulating, thorough, and clearly and engagingly written - with no potentially significant philosophical stone left unturned. Broad in scope, the book includes coverage of several areas of philosophy, including philosophy of mind, science, and ethics. For philosophers and psychiatrists, The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Psychiatry is a landmark publication in the field - one that will be of value to both students and researchers in this rapidly growing area.

Snake Oil Science

Snake Oil Science PDF Author: R. Barker Bausell PhD
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 9780199758593
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 352

Book Description
Millions of people worldwide swear by such therapies as acupuncture, herbal cures, and homeopathic remedies. Indeed, complementary and alternative medicine is embraced by a broad spectrum of society, from ordinary people, to scientists and physicians, to celebrities such as Prince Charles and Oprah Winfrey. In the tradition of Michael Shermers Why People Believe Weird Things and Robert Parks's Voodoo Science, Barker Bausell provides an engaging look at the scientific evidence for complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) and at the logical, psychological, and physiological pitfalls that lead otherwise intelligent people--including researchers, physicians, and therapists--to endorse these cures. The books ultimate goal is to reveal not whether these therapies work--as Bausell explains, most do work, although weakly and temporarily--but whether they work for the reasons their proponents believe. Indeed, as Bausell reveals, it is the placebo effect that accounts for most of the positive results. He explores this remarkable phenomenon--the biological and chemical evidence for the placebo effect, how it works in the body, and why research on any therapy that does not factor in the placebo effect will inevitably produce false results. By contrast, as Bausell shows in an impressive survey of research from high-quality scientific journals and systematic reviews, studies employing credible placebo controls do not indicate positive effects for CAM therapies over and above those attributable to random chance. Here is not only an entertaining critique of the strangely zealous world of CAM belief and practice, but it also a first-rate introduction to how to correctly interpret scientific research of any sort. Readers will come away with a solid understanding of good vs. bad research practice and a healthy skepticism of claims about the latest miracle cure, be it St. John's Wort for depression or acupuncture for chronic pain.