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How to Study Placebo Responses in Motion Sickness with a Rotation Chair Paradigm in Healthy Participants

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Placebo and Psychotherapy: Differences, Similarities, and Implications.

Jens Gaab¹, Cosima Locher¹, Charlotte Blease²

¹Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland.

International Review of Neurobiology

|April 24, 2018

Summary

Psychotherapy and placebo interventions are both effective, but share similarities. Innovative research suggests psychotherapy can be distinguished from placebo effects using specific study designs, impacting ethical practice.

Keywords:

Ethics Placebo Placebo effect Psychotherapy Randomized controlled trials

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Area of Science:

Psychology
Psychotherapy Research
Clinical Psychology

Background:

Placebo and psychotherapy are recognized as effective psychological interventions.
A long-standing debate questions whether psychotherapy is merely a placebo effect.
This review examines the relationship between psychotherapy and placebo concepts.

Purpose of the Study:

To critically review the claim that psychotherapy is a placebo.
To evaluate arguments against the applicability of the placebo concept to psychotherapy.
To explore implications for psychotherapy research and ethical practice.

Main Methods:

Critical review of literature based on Grünbaum's placebo conceptualization.
Analysis of empirical challenges in differentiating psychotherapy from placebo effects.
Examination of innovative research designs from placebo studies.

Main Results:

An "unwanted proximity" exists between psychotherapy and placebo interventions.
Empirical separation of psychotherapy's specific effects faces methodological challenges.
Psychotherapy can be empirically distinguished from placebo effects through adapted study designs.

Conclusions:

The placebo concept has significant implications for psychotherapy and its research.
Methodological rigor is needed to validate psychotherapy's distinct efficacy.
Ethical practice in psychotherapy necessitates understanding and addressing placebo components.