This Section offers a comprehensive exploration of placebo effects and expectations within clinical interventions, shedding light on their underlying mechanisms and potential applications. By understanding and harnessing these phenomena, we can further enhance treatment outcomes and optimize healthcare practices. The first chapter presents a conceptual model that elucidates the contribution of placebo responses in antidepressant treatment. Factors such as expectancy and physician contact are highlighted as influential elements, and their manipulation holds the potential to optimize placebo responses in both pharmacotherapy research and clinical practice. Moving forward, the second chapter focuses on placebo and nocebo effects in depression, examining their mechanisms of action. The discussion revolves around the possibility that placebos could offer substantial benefits comparable to antidepressants, while avoiding medication side effects, with potential implications for clinical trial design. The role of participant expectations in cognitive training interventions takes center stage in the third chapter. While cognitive training has demonstrated improvements in cognition, the impact of expectations or placebo effects on these outcomes is examined to mitigate their influence or harness them to maximize intervention effectiveness. Lastly, the fourth chapter explores the transformation of placebos, particularly open-label placebos, from deceptive controls to a form of psychotherapy. It contemplates the integration of open-label placebos into psychotherapy and reflects on the possibilities and benefits that arise from this fusion.
Placebo Effects Through the Lens of Translational Research
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