The Power of Positive Expectation

Research shows that as patients, when we think something will work, its chances of doing so increase dramatically

Research shows that as patients, when we think something will work, its chances of doing so increase dramatically. What’s effective is not the placebo, meaning the benefit patients derive from a ‘dummy’ pill, but the meaning of the treatment. The power of the effect depends on four variables: patient expectancy; motivation (the desire to improve one’s health); a certain amount of conditioning, including from advertising; and endogenous opiates, or pain-relieving chemicals produced in the brain, which copy the effect of pain-relievers such as opiates. Indeed, a substantial percentage of the effects from anti-depressants may be placebo effects.

Researchers have, of course, long known the effect of placebos. There are exciting opportunities and real quandaries (medical and ethical) that the placebo effect poses, in so far as it can have a substantial and lasting impact on patients without costs or side effects. The placebo indicates that the mind and its sometimes unconscious effects are incredibly powerful instruments in treatment.