The Placebo Phenomenon Analysis

The brain is by far the most spectacularly complex part of the human body. Not only does it control voluntary actions such as movement, but the brain also carries out vital involuntary actions such as breathing and controlling our immune system. Typically, our brain doesn’t get confused when it comes to the unconscious thoughts of involuntary actions, but sometimes our brains become misled. For example, a little boy around the age of five falls off the swing, and receives a small cut on his forearm. The boy, with a river of tears running down his face, cries intensely for his mother. She comes running to the rescue with a band aid, places it over the cut, and assures him he is going to be alright. The little boy instantly stops crying and is …show more content…
It is the effect of these placebos, which bring about an improvement in a patient’s symptoms. However, according to Cara Feinberg, writer of “The Placebo Phenomenon”, the placebo effect has often been referred to as “fake” medicine and “sham treatment”. Even Kaptchuk will agree that “placebos provide relief, they rarely cure” (8). But it is this relief and improvement of symptoms that is often valuable to a patient. For example, placebos cannot shrink a cancerous tumor, but there is evidence that placebos improve the cancer treatment symptoms of fatigue, nausea, and pain. Likewise, placebos do not improve an asthma patient’s forced expiratory volume (FEV), but have relieved some of the symptoms of asthma (Kaptchuk,8). However, there are instances where illnesses have been cured. For instance, Dr. Joe Dispenza, author of You Are the Placebo: Making Your Mind Matter, recounts that a woman taking part in a drug trial for chronic depression was cured of her depression despite that fact that she was taking a placebo (7-8). It was the relationship between the doctor and patient that allowed the placebo effect to work fully. Furthermore, Dr. W. Grant Thompson writes in The Placebo Effect and Health that these improvements occur when the doctor exhibits “encouragement and if the patient has a positive attitude …show more content…
It does seem hard to believe at times that placebos can actually bring about improvements in conditions. However, Kaptchuk adamantly states that the placebo effects “are not bogus” (9). There are real physical and psychological responses that take place. According to Dr. Joe Dispenza, conditioning and expectation are key elements leading to the psychological response (Dispenza, 47). Dr. Dispenza states that conditioning is based upon past memory. For example, many people take aspirin to ease the pain of a headache. When this process is repeated several times, our brains associate the aspirin to headache relief. Our brains have become conditioned to “produce an automatic inner response” even when a placebo looks like an aspirin (Dispenza, 48). Another way the placebo effect works is through expectation, which is based on what a person thinks will happen. Take a look at Dr. Thompson’s experiment with some pharmacy students. In this experiment, the students were given pills of four different colors, telling the students that each color helped with something. For example, the blue pill was said to sedate, while the pink pill was said to excite. Although the pills were placebos and contained no therapeutic medicine, the students still experienced the changes they expected (Thompson, page #). It is through conditioning and expectations that real changes are taking place in the brain. Dr.

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