Positive Health Online

Abstract

MOERMAN, University of Michigan-Dearborn, USA, writes about the ‘meaning response’ and the ethics of avoiding placebos. The concept of the placebo effect is often thought to imply a deception and therefore disparaged and despised. Rethinking this leads to the realization that these benefits flow largely from the meaning given to medical encounters and are therefore far better understood as a ‘meaning response’. There need be no deception involved in eliciting meaning responses, and they are often very desirable and engage fundamental human biological pathways. All this puts the ethical dilemmas around placebo treatments in a new light. It seems unethical to avoid trying to understand more fully how meaning can so profoundly improve human well-being.

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References

Moerman DE. The meaning response and the ethics of avoiding placebos. Evaluation and the Health Professions 25 (4): 399—409, Dec 2002.