Special Section on The Placebo Concept in Psychotherapy
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The placebo is powerful: Estimating placebo effects in medicine and psychotherapy from randomized clinical trials
Bruce E. Wampold,
Takuya Minami, Sandra Callen Tierney, Thomas W. Baskin, Kuldhir S. Bhati,
Corresponding Author
Bruce E. Wampold
University of Wisconsin—Madison
Department of Counseling Psychology, 321 Education Building—1000 Bascom Mall, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI 53706Search for more papers by this authorBruce E. Wampold,
Takuya Minami, Sandra Callen Tierney, Thomas W. Baskin, Kuldhir S. Bhati,
Corresponding Author
Bruce E. Wampold
University of Wisconsin—Madison
Department of Counseling Psychology, 321 Education Building—1000 Bascom Mall, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI 53706Search for more papers by this authorAbstract
The logic of the randomized double-blind placebo control group design is presented, and problems with using the design in psychotherapy are discussed. Placebo effects are estimated by examining clinical trials in medicine and psychotherapy. In medicine, a recent meta-analysis of clinical trials with treatment, placebo, and no treatment arms was conducted (Hróbjartsson & Gøtzsche, 2001), and it was concluded that placebos have small or no effects. A re-analysis of those studies, presented here, shows that when disorders are amenable to placebos and the design is adequate to detect the effects, the placebo effect is robust and approaches the treatment effect. For psychological disorders, particularly depression, it has been shown that pill placebos are nearly as effective as active medications whereas psychotherapies are more effective than psychological placebos. However, it is shown that when properly designed, psychological placebos are as effective as accepted psychotherapies. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Clin Psychol 61: 835–854, 2005.
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