Product Description: The role that the placebo effect plays in many treatments is clear: it not only plays a complimentary role in most treatments but it can sometimes be the only benefit of treatment. Brain imaging studies over the past decade have shown that placebo-treated patients undergo some of the same changes in brain activity as those treated with pharmacologically active substances...read more

An exploration of the beneficial effects of placebos examines the latest medical research, discusses the inner healing power of the body to accomplish cures beyond the power of drugs, and offers advice on tapping that power.

The author examines the scientific evidence for and against complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) in an entertaining critique of the strangely zealous world of CAM belief and practice that also furnishes an introduction on how to interpret scientific research of any sort.

Product Description: Placebo responses are automatic and unconscious and cannot be predicted based on conscious volition. Instead, they reflect complex interactions between the innate reward system of the nervous system and encoded procedural memories and imaginal fantasies...read more

Product Description: Since the days when doctors routinely made house calls and sat by the bedside offering comforting words along with medical care, the doctor-patient relationship has become increasingly impersonal and superficial. As medical technology and treatment have improved, and time constraints have become more demanding, the beneficial effects of meaningful doctor-patient interactions have too often been overlooked...read more

(view table of contents)

(view table of contents)

A guide for those who want a review of the state of placebo science and ethical use of placebos in clinical trials. This book brings together researchers from a wide range of disciplines to examine the biological, behavioural, social, cultural and ethical aspects related to the placebo effect.

Until this century, most medications prescribed by physicians were pharmacologically inert, if not harmful. That is, physicians were prescribing placebos or worse without knowing it. In a sense, then, the history of medical treatment until relatively recently is the history of the placebo effect. Based on the authors' lifelong study and clinical research, this is a comprehensive and scholarly examination of the placebo effect. The authors begin by surveying the use of placebos from antiquity to modern times. They also examine the development, use, and validity of the double-blind, controlled clinical trial. And they present their own study of the placebo effect in more than 1000 patients.Demonstrating both the magnitude and the limitations of the placebo effect, the book helps to clarify knotty issues ranging from the evaluation of therapies to the ethics of conducting controlled studies in which patients are deliberately given placebos. With the renewed interest in the mind-body relationship as well as in the role of placebos in new and alternative medical procedures and therapies, the findings of this book are especially timely. (view table of contents)

Product Description: In this book an eminent physician explores how patients and caring doctors can help lessen suffering when illness occurs. Dr. Howard Spiro urges that physicians focus on their patients' feelings of pain and anxiety as well as on physical symptoms...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: This interdisciplinary volume offers an overview of the specific/nonspecific dichotomy in the medical context. Representatives from the philosophy of science, experimental psychology, clinical pharmacology, psychotherapy and clinical psychiatry give their respective stances on this important issue...read more

Examines New Age claims for the powers of crystals, discusses the nature and characteristics of quartz crystals, and suggests they are spiritual

Discusses the difference between disease and illness, the problem of pain, patient-physician relations, alternative medicine, and medical practice