The placebo effect
How can you use the placebo effect in clinical practice as a doctor?
By playing on the idea of response expectancy, you should tell patients how well you feel a drug will work. It is possible that you will be able to initiate a placebo effect, and actually cause the patient to get better.
What is response expectancy?
The idea that the expectation of a response to a medication could actually cause that response to occur.
What is classical conditioning?
The idea that you can cause someone to have a reaction by exposing them to it several times. You pair a conditioned stimulus with an unconditioned stimulus and achieve an unconditioned response. Then, by doing this several times, you can get an unconditioned response with just the conditioned stimulus. PAVLOV's dogs.
What is the placebo effect?
Where a patient sees a beneficial effect of a fake medication or treatment because they have the expectation of it working.
What is the nocebo effect?
Where the patient sees a negative effect of something because they expect things like side effects to occur.