Also known as the expectancy manipulation model and nonspecific effects. A human trait that involves brain functions, cultures, and belief systems.

The placebo effect is part of the human potential to react positively to a healer.
— Dr Michael Jospe⁷

The stereotype of a placebo is some substance without pharmacological effect that is given merely to satisfy a patient who supposes it to be a medicine, or a substance used as a control during a clinical trial of a drug or compound.

Rather than say a placebo has no effects, think of a placebo as having wide effects. Brain-imaging studies show that a placebo alters brain activity as profoundly as magical thinking.²

Placebos manipulate our beliefs, needs, expectancies, and motivations. The knowledge people have about a discipline and its treatments generates a placebo effect.³

Doctors use placebos for relieving pain and symptoms, and increasing function and quality of life in humans. A doctor can be an “unwitting contributor” to the effects⁸, because doctor and patient typically share a belief in the effectiveness of a treatment.⁵ For example, treating depression with antidepressants works in large part because of the placebo effect.³

Feng Shui and the Placebo Effect

Manipulation is the strength of modern forms of feng shui. Practitioners express their faith in feng shui and a client is indoctrinated into the faith. The practitioner in return receives a great deal of information about the client. No measurements, analysis, or record-keeping are involved. According to testimonials, clients and practitioners embrace the logical fallacy post hoc, ergo propter hoc (“after it, therefore, because of it”).

When good placebos go bad

This is the nocebo effect, the mirror opposite of the placebo effect. People expect symptoms to get much worse before they get better.¹

References

1. Fabrizio Benedetti, Martina Amanzio, Sergio Vighetti, and Giovanni Asteggiano. “The Biochemical and Neuroendocrine Bases of the Hyperalgesic Nocebo Effect.”
   J. Neurosci. 26: 12014-12022; doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2947-06.2006
2. Carey, Benedict. “Do You Believe in Magic?” New York Times. January 23, 2007
3. Harley, David. “Rhetoric and the Social Construction of Sickness and Healing.” Soc Hist Med 12: 407-435.
4. “Placebo Effect May Be As High As 70%.” Journal Watch Dermatology, Oct 1993; 1993: 1.
5. T. J. Kaptchuk. “The Placebo Effect in Alternative Medicine: Can the Performance of a Healing Ritual Have Clinical Significance?” Ann Intern Med 2002; 817-825.
6. Jian Kong, Randy L. Gollub, Ilana S. Rosman, J. Megan Webb, Mark G. Vangel, Irving Kirsch, and Ted J. Kaptchuk. “Brain Activity Associated with Expectancy-Enhanced Placebo Analgesia as Measured by Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging.” J. Neurosci. 26: 381-388; doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.3556-05.2006.
7. Nordenberg, Tamar: “The Healing Power of Placebos” (FDA Consumer magazine
   January-February 2000)
8. Olshansky, Brian. “Placebo and Nocebo in Cardiovascular Health: Implications for Healthcare, Research, and the Doctor-Patient Relationship.” J Am Coll Cardiol 2007 49: 415-421
9. Seminowicz, David A. “Believe in Your Placebo.” J. Neurosci. 26: 4453-4454; doi:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0789-06.2006.
10. Vallance, Aaron K. “Something out of nothing: the placebo effect.” Adv Psychiatr Treat 2006 12: 287-296.