PSYC 690J3 Lecture Notes - Eating Disorder, Binge Drinking, Clinical Formulation
Document Summary
Placebo effect refers to an improvement in a physical or psychological condition that is attributable to a patients expectations of help rather than to any specific active ingredient in a treatment. The effects of pilgrimages to shrines such as lourdes may be placebo effects. The placebo effect is commonly found and universally accepted in drug research. It has been estimated for ex that among depressed patients who respond favourably to antidepressant medication half are actually showing a placebo response. In psychotherapy the mere effect of being helped can be an active ingredient. Why? if the theory adopted by the therapist holds that positive expectancy of improvement is an active ingredient then improvement arising from the expectancy would by definition not be considered a place effect. Placebo factors should be replaced with the concept of common factors in the study of the effects of psychotherapy. They defined common factors as those that are common to most therapies.