BU Library: Research Directions in Complementary, Integrative & Alternative Medicine: Placebo / Patient-Practitioner

Overviews and Specifics

Cutting edge work in placebo studies is currently being conducted by Ted Kaptchuk (Harvard), Arthur Barskey (Harvard), Luana Colloca (U. of Turin), Fabrizio Benedetti (U. of Turin), Tor D. Wager (U of CO), and others. See the links below for a sampling of articles...

Open-Label Placebo Treatment for Cancer-Related Fatigue: A Randomized-Controlled Clinical Trial
(2018) Hoenemeyer TW, Kaptchuk TJ, Mehta TS, Fontaine KR. RCT studying effects on cancer patients who had been told they would receive a placebo.
Scientific tools, fake treatments, or triggers for psychological healing: how clinical trial participants conceptualise placebos
(2012) Bishop FL, Jacobson EE, Shaw JR, Kaptchuk TJ. "Negative views of placebos are inconsistent with evidence that placebo treatments can have positive effects on symptoms. RCT participants should be informed about potential benefits of placebo treatments to avoid misunderstandings and unease." (From the abstract)
How expectation shapes pain.
(2012) Atlas LY1, Wager TD. Discusses how "expectations about treatments (placebo analgesia and nocebo effects) and expectations about the environment (e.g. expectations about pain itself) ... lead to changes in subjective pain shape pain-intensity processing in the central nervous system." (From the abstract)
Biological, clinical, and ethical advances of placebo effects.
(2010) Finniss DG, Kaptchuk TJ, Miller F, Benedetti F.
Reviews recent research showing that placebo effects are "genuine psychobiological events attributable to the overall therapeutic context"; advocates the integration of lab and clinical research to explore their benefits.

Placebo as "Contextual Healing"

"As a clinical phenomenon, the 'placebo effect' is a generic name for beneficial effects that derive from the context of the clinical encounter, including the ritual of treatment and the clinician-patient relationship, as distinct from therapeutic benefits produced by the specific characteristic pharmacological or physiological effects of medical interventions. ... Moreover, the communicative interaction of practitioners with patients, both verbal and nonverbal, may produce placebo effects even without the use of discrete treatments."

Miller, F.G., Colloca, L. and Kaptchuk, T.J. (2009). The placebo effect: illness and interpersonal healing. Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, 52/4: 519.

Patient-Practitioner Relationship

The placebo effect: illness and interpersonal healing.
Franklin G. Miller, Ph.D., Luana Colloca, M.D., Ph.D., and Ted J. Kaptchuk. (2009). Reviews the evidence relating to the reality and clinical significance of the placebo effect.
Patient and Practitioner Influences on the Placebo Effect in Irritable Bowel Syndrome
John M Kelley, PhD, Anthony J Lembo, MD, Ted J Kaptchuk, et al. (2009). Assesses whether placebo responses are best explained by patient or practitioner characteristics, or their interpersonal interactions.
Components of placebo effect: randomized controlled trial in patients with irritable bowel syndrome
Ted J Kaptchuk, et al. (2008). "Factors contributing to the placebo effect can be progressively combined in a manner resembling a graded dose escalation of component parts. Non-specific effects can produce statistically and clinically significant outcomes and the patient-practitioner relationship is the most robust component." (From the abstract)
Self-organizing biopsychosocial dynamics and the patient-healer relationship.
Pincus D. (2012). Overview of key models and methods from nonlinear dynamical systems that support empirical testing of CAM outcomes on biopsychosocial processes.

NPR: The Hidden Brain>The Unsuspected Potential of Placebo

The Untapped Potential of Palcebo (NPR)
Episode of The Hidden Brain, moderated by Shankar Vedantam, National Public Radio's science correspondent (April 29, 2019; 50 mim.)

Web Links

Harvard Program in Placebo Studies & the Therapeutic Encounter
Beth Israel Deaconness Medical Center; Ted J. Kaptchuk, director

Mechanisms

The placebo effect: advances from different methodological approaches.
(2011) "A major aspect of recent and future advances in placebo research is to demonstrate linkages between behavior, brain, and bodily responses. This article provides an overview ... by combining research findings from behavioral, psychophysiological, and neuroimaging methods." (From the abstract.)
The rebirth of neuroscience in psychosomatic medicine, Part I: historical context, methods, and relevant basic science.
(2009)
The rebirth of neuroscience in psychosomatic medicine, Part II: clinical applications and implications for research.
(2009)