Evidence for Increased Effectiveness of Placebos With Increased Stress

¹ From the Anesthesia Laboratory of the Harvard Medical School at the Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts

Evidence has been presented that placebos are increasingly effective with increased stress. This greater effectiveness seems to be dependent upon the greater significance of (reaction to) severe stress than less severe. Thus the concept of the importance of significance of symptoms in drug action is supported. It is possible that not only placebos but therapeutically effective drugs may also be proportionately more effective with increasing stress. It is believed that this is a new concept. The use of placebos in this study has made it possible to ascertain a) the importance of the reaction or processing phase in suffering, b) the effectiveness of drugs (placebos at least) as proportional to the significance and degree of the cause of the stress. Thus the use of placebos gives the means for attack on certain fundamental aspects of drug action.

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