M.M. I have the feeling that we
have not paid enough attention to the placebo effect and
we only consider its importance
for testing new medicaments,
but it’s more than that and has
more to do with healing than
many drugs, right?
I.K. For decades, the placebo effect
was only considered as part of the
process of testing new medications, but that has been changing.
Medical researchers are becoming
more interested in understanding
the placebo effect and figuring out
how one can make use of it in clinical practice.
sadness, joy). What the placebo
effect shows is that these expectancies are self-confirming. Believing
that we will have a certain experience can produce that experience.
M.M. Modern medicine has a
pill for everything, even for
depression, but you conducted
a research that showed the real
effectiveness of antidepressants
is very small, while the placebo
effect in the administration of
these antidepressants is much
bigger. Considering that antidepressants are drugs, most of
them very addictive and with
many undesirable side effects,
should we consider other alternatives?
I.K. The clinical trials conducted
by the drug companies show that
most of the effectiveness of antidepressants is due to the placebo
effect. Many other treatments (for
example, psychotherapy and physical exercise) are just as effective
as antidepressants, but they don’t
produce the side effects or other
M.M. You have a very interesting theory, called the response
expectancy theory. What is it
about?
I.K. Response expectancy theory was inspired by study of the
placebo effect. Expectancies are
anticipations of what will happen.
Response expectancies are anticipations of what we will experience
in various situations (e.g., pain,
44