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Placebo Effects: The Meaning of Care in Medicine by Pekka Louhiala

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 January 2023

Rebecca Macy
Rebecca Macy*
Affiliation:
Health Psychology, MCPHS University, Boston, MA, USA
*
Email: rebecca.macy@mcphs.edu
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Extract

Pekka Louhiala crosses disciplines and decades to present a remarkably detailed review of the existing literature on placebos, placebo effects, and related concepts. The problem at hand—and Louhiala does aptly frame it as a problem—is a striking lack of consensus among researchers, scholars, and clinicians regarding virtually all aspects of the placebo topic. In capturing the complexity of this problem, Louhiala expertly compiles an extensive catalog of placebo literature that effectively gives the reader both a map of the territory and a legend to decipher it. He does not, however, give us clear directions to find our way out of the conceptual maze. The focus is often more on the problems than their solutions, which is simultaneously the most notable weakness and the greatest strength of the book.

Type
Review Article
Information
Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics , Volume 32 , Issue 4 , October 2023 , pp. 602 - 605
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press

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References

Notes

1. Louhiala, P. Placebo Effects: The Meaning of Care in Medicine. New York: Springer International Publishing; 2020:14 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2. See note 1, Louhiala 2020, at 8, 82.

3. Vitebsky, P. Loving and forgetting: Moments of inarticulacy in tribal India. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 2008;14(2):243–61CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4. See note 3, Vitebsky 2008, at 247.

5. See note 1, Louhiala 2020, at 14–15.

6. Benedetti, F, Carlino, E, Pollo, A. How placebos change the patient’s brain. Neuropsychopharmacology: Official Publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology 2011;36(1):339 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

7. See note 1, Louhiala 2020, at 32.

8. See note 1, Louhiala 2020, at 103.

9. Moerman, DE, Jonas, WB. Deconstructing the placebo effect and finding the meaning response. Annals of Internal Medicine 2002;136(6):471–6CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

10. See note 1, Louhiala 2020, at 32.