Social exclusion, that is being left out by others, can have adverse consequences for individuals' psychological well-being. Even short-term experiences of social exclusion strongly threaten basic psychological needs and cause so-called social pain. Prior research suggests an overlap between the experience of social and physical pain that, amongst others, is reflected by the effectiveness of physical pain treatments in alleviating social pain.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThree meta-analyses have demonstrated the clinical potential of open-label placebos (OLPs). However, there is a need to synthesize the existing evidence through more complex analyses that would make it possible to answer questions beyond mere efficacy. Such analyses would serve to improve the understanding of why and under what circumstances OLPs work (e.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPlacebos have been shown to be beneficial for various conditions even if administered with full transparency. Hence, so-called open-label placebos (OLPs) offer a new way to harness placebo effects ethically. To take this concept one step further, this study aimed at evaluating placebo effects without the use of a physical placebo, i.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPlacebos are known to yield significant effects in many conditions. We examined deceptive and open-label placebo effects on guilt, which is important for self-regulation and a symptom of mental disorders. Following an experimental induction of guilt, healthy subjects were randomized to deceptive placebo (DP; n = 35), open-label placebo (OLP; n = 35), or no treatment (NT; n = 39).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFOpen-label placebos have been proposed as way of using long recognized analgesic placebo effects in an ethical manner. Recent evidence shows efficacy of open-label placebos for clinical conditions, but there is need for more research on open-label placebos in acute pain. In the treatment of acute postoperative pain, minimization of opioid related side effects remains one of the key challenges.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFOver the last years, the interest in understanding health improvements that occur due to non-specific treatment effects, rather than in response to the specific active treatment ingredients, increased. Nevertheless, investigations on patients' idiosyncratic perspectives on the non-specific aspects of the healing encounter or of the treatment itself that contribute to placebo effects are still rare. The (HEAL) offer a unique and parsimonious set of instruments to measure patients' views on a variety of non-specific aspects of the caring encounter.
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