Placebo Effect Report

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In this report we will discuss Ferdinand Bernard Ueberwasser and his contribution to psychology with the placebo effect. We will discuss how he came to the discovery of the placebo effect, the placebo effect in practice, and its place in modern day psychology practices. We will review articles that have used the placebo effect in their studies and see how it played an effect in

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In this report we will discuss Ferdinand Bernard Ueberwasser and his contribution to psychology with the placebo effect, what is the placebo effect and how it is used in modern medicine and psychology. Although, he is often a forgotten pioneer in psychology, his work in empirical psychology and thoughts
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Colloca, Kaptchuk, Miller (2010), said “The placebo effect as a clinical phenomenon is characterized as representing the interpersonal component of healing, as distinct from spontaneous natural healing and technological healing dependent on physiologically active pharmaceuticals or procedures”. In more simpler terms, the placebo effect used in a clinical setting is giving someone a sugar pill or “placebo” and telling them this is an actual drug and monitoring their results and seeing if they had improvements in their condition or not against the group that did receive the drug. However, according to Colloca et. al.’s (2010), “there is no standard definition”, instead is “a generic name for beneficial effects that derive from the context of the clinical …show more content…
It has many benefits when used to determine the effects of a drug or practice. For instance, in medicine researchers use the placebo effect when they want to test a new medication or a new medical procedure to see if the symptoms improve with or without the assistance of a medication. In psychology, sometimes the method is the same but the approach is different. When researched in psychology the focus is more on the behavioral or neurological causation and treatment. For instance, with depression, there have been numerous studies that study depression and how effective the medications that are prescribed really are in relation to individuals who perceived they are getting better. One of the specific experiment was performed by Dr.’s Andrew F. Leuchter, Ian A. Cook, Elise A. Witte, Melinda Morgan, and nurse Michelle Abrams. Their experiment what to see if the brain function differed in patients that received the actual medication or those who received a placebo pill. According to Leuchter et. al.’s (2002), “between 25%-60% of depressed patients who are treated with placebo may have substantial reductions in symptoms”. This is not uncommon with more trials that have a placebo because it is usually mind over matter in most cases. However, it is also mentioned because of the the high responses, these rates “complicate the development of antidepressant drugs”, this is if, “they

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