The DOI matches its Crossref record; 9 of the 9 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
The placebo is powerful: Estimating placebo effects in medicine and psychotherapy from randomized clinical trials
Abstract
The logic of the randomized double-blind placebo control group design is presented, and problems with using the design in psychotherapy are discussed. Placebo effects are estimated by examining clinical trials in medicine and psychotherapy. In medicine, a recent meta-analysis of clinical trials with treatment, placebo, and no treatment arms was conducted (Hróbjartsson & Gøtzsche, 2001), and it was concluded that placebos have small or no effects. A re-analysis of those studies, presented here, shows that when disorders are amenable to placebos and the design is adequate to detect the effects, the placebo effect is robust and approaches the treatment effect. For psychological disorders, particularly depression, it has been shown that pill placebos are nearly as effective as active medications whereas psychotherapies are more effective than psychological placebos. However, it is shown that when properly designed, psychological placebos are as effective as accepted psychotherapies.
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Citations
Cites
Elkin, I. (1989) · Archives of General Psychiatry · doi:10.1001/archpsyc.1989.01810110013002 · Cited by 2,300 · cited 1×
“The first result is that psychological treatments of depression are generally equivalent to psychopharmacological treatments of depression (Elkin et al., 1989; Hollon et al., 1992).”
ResultCredibility of analogue therapy rationales
Borkovec, T. D., & Nau, S. D. (1972) · Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry · doi:10.1016/0005-7916(72)90045-6 · Cited by 1,553 · cited 2×
“Over the years, many have commented on the nature of placebo treatments as a control for psychotherapeutic treatments in clinical trials (Basham, 1986; Borkovec & Nau, 1972; Brody, 1980; Horvath, 1988; Lambert & Ogles, 2004; O’Leary & Borkovec, 1978; Sheppard, 1993; Wampold, 1997, 2001a, 2001b).”
BackgroundA component analysis of cognitive-behavioral treatment for depression.
Jacobson, N. S., Dobson, K. S., Truax, P. A., Addis, M. E., Koerner, K., Gollan, J. K., Gortner, E., & Prince, S. E. (1996) · Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology · doi:10.1037/0022-006x.64.2.295 · Cited by 1,413
Frank, J. (1993) · doi:10.56021/9780801840678 · Cited by 1,094
Wampold, B. E., Mondin, G. W., Moody, M., Stich, F., Benson, K., & Ahn, H.-N. (1997) · Psychological Bulletin · doi:10.1037/0033-2909.122.3.203 · Cited by 1,091
Self-citationTesting the integrity of a psychotherapy protocol: Assessment of adherence and competence
Waltz, J., Addis, M. E., Koerner, K., & Jacobson, N. S. (1993) · Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology · doi:10.1037/0022-006x.61.4.620 · Cited by 873
Borkovec, T. D., & Costello, E. (1993) · Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology · doi:10.1037/0022-006x.61.4.611 · Cited by 756
The researcher's own therapy allegiances: A "wild card" in comparisons of treatment efficacy.
Luborsky, L., Diguer, L., Seligman, D. A., Rosenthal, R., Krause, E. D., Johnson, S., Halperin, G., Bishop, M., Berman, J. S., & Schweizer, E. (1999) · Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice · doi:10.1093/clipsy.6.1.95 · Cited by 572 · cited 1×
“Given that allegiance has been shown to be related to outcomes (see Luborsky et al., 1999; Wampold, 2001b) and that most placebo treatments are administered by advocates of the active treatment or are trained by advocates of the active treatment, as well as the difficulty in faithfully and…”
BackgroundCognitive Therapy and Pharmacotherapy for Depression: Singly and in Combination
Hollon, S. D. (1992) · Archives of General Psychiatry · doi:10.1001/archpsyc.1992.01820100018004 · Cited by 481 · cited 1×
“The first result is that psychological treatments of depression are generally equivalent to psychopharmacological treatments of depression (Elkin et al., 1989; Hollon et al., 1992).”
Result
Cited by
The psychological effects of meditation: a meta-analysis
Sedlmeier, P., Eberth, J., Schwarz, M., Zimmermann, D., Haarig, F., Jaeger, S., & Kunze, S. (2012) · Psychological Bulletin · doi:10.1037/a0028168 · Cited by 910
Carpenter, J. K., Andrews, L. A., Witcraft, S. M., Powers, M. B., Smits, J. A. J., & Hofmann, S. G. (2018) · Depression and Anxiety · doi:10.1002/da.22728 · Cited by 846
Placebo interventions for all clinical conditions
Hróbjartsson, A., & Gøtzsche, P. C. (2010) · Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews · doi:10.1002/14651858.cd003974.pub3 · Cited by 777
Watts, R., Day, C., Krzanowski, J., Nutt, D., & Carhart-Harris, R. (2017) · Journal of Humanistic Psychology · doi:10.1177/0022167817709585 · Cited by 589
Goldberg, S. B., Riordan, K. M., Sun, S., & Davidson, R. J. (2022) · Perspectives on Psychological Science · doi:10.1177/1745691620968771 · Cited by 520
“The challenge of applying the double-blind placebo-controlled design is not unique to MBIs but exists for all behavioral interventions (Wampold et al., 2005).”
Metadata
- Authors
- Wampold, B. E., Minami, T., Tierney, S. C., Baskin, T. W., & Bhati, K. S.
- Venue
- Journal of Clinical Psychology
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2005
- Volume
- 61
- Issue
- 7
- Pages
- 835-854
- ISSN
- 0021-9762 (ISSN-L)
- 1097-4679
- OpenAlex
- W1966770824
- Cited by
- 298
- References
- 9
- FWCI
- 7.47
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
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- Wampold, B. E., Minami, T., Tierney, S. C., Baskin, T. W., & Bhati, K. S. (2005). The placebo is powerful: Estimating placebo effects in medicine and psychotherapy from randomized clinical trials. Journal of Clinical Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1002/jclp.20129
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Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.
Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
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