EFT: Just Another Pseudoscience Placebo

"The Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), also referred to as tapping therapy or energy psychology, has been gaining popularity both as a self-help technique and psychological intervention. However, it remains firmly in the realm of pseudoscience and reveals significant weaknesses in the psychological research infrastructure.

"EFT is based explicitly on acupuncture/acupressure points, specific locations on so-called “meridians” in the body where 'energy' flows. Here is a typical definition:

• EFT works by tapping on acupressure meridians to release blockages. When these blockages are released, the problem feeling can be released and move through the body. The process starts with a beginning statement of what the problem feeling is and includes a complete acceptance and acknowledgment of the problem.

"This 'energy' allegedly ties negative emotions to an idea or thought, and proponents claim you can free yourself from those negative emotions by tapping energy points while repeating a reminder phrase. This, of course, is magical nonsense. Every component of this claim is not only prescientific superstition, they have been adequately shown to not be true."

Click on this link for more.

Cannabis (Marijuana) Is A Placebo

"If you’ve tried one of the various formulations of medical cannabis (marijuana) in hopes of easing your chronic pain, you’re far from alone. Treating pain is by far the most common reason offered by the many millions of Americans who use products that contain cannabinoids, the main active components in marijuana.

"However, there’s good evidence that a cannabis placebo — a substance designed to mimic the real thing in appearance, smell, taste, and feel — provides very similar pain relief as a cannabis-based product, according to a new review in JAMA Network Open. But why?"

Click on the link below for the latest research on the effects of this substance on pain. Interestingly, it also appears that "With the exception of opioids, most pain-relieving medications are barely better than a placebo":

Does Cannabis actually relieve pain?

Kinesio Tape: Another Sports Medicine Placebo

"There is extensive literature on K-Tape. Despite a sprinkling of positive studies—showing a small benefit on ankle proprioception and stability—the data are overwhelmingly insignificant. A key-word search on PubMed (a popular online search tool for life sciences and biomedical research) returned fifteen review articles and/or meta-analyses, authored by various groups and institutions, that have summarized the effects of K-Tape on injury management, rehabilitation, and exercise performance. I encourage you to study their methods and results independently, but here are the cliff notes, organized by body part."

Click on the link below for the details:

A Magnificent Marketing Machine

The Deception Can Be Eliminated And It Still Can Be Effective

Every science-based thinker knows about the Placebo Effect. Traditionally part of controlled medical experiments, it is used deceptively.  Also, it is clear that the "effectiveness" of prayer/religion and alternatives to medicine is purely a placebo, and, likewise, instilled through deception by dogma and indoctrination.  This article presents the results of some very interesting and promising experiments showing the possibilities and values of the use of the Placebo Effect sans the deception of religion and alternatives to medicine.

Placebo Effect Updates

"'Given the enormous societal toll of chronic pain, being able to predict placebo responders in a chronic pain population could both help the design of personalized medicine and enhance the success of clinical trials,' said Marwan Baliki, PhD,  a research scientist at RIC and an assistant professor of physical medicine and rehabilitation at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine."

Placebo Effect is All in Our Heads  

"In a sense both Pauletich and Mödl participated in a performance, one that we humans have been engaging in for thousands of years, every time we go to healers with the hope that they can make us feel better. And just as a good performance in a theater can draw us in until we feel we’re watching something real, the theater of healing is designed to draw us in by creating powerful expectations in our brains. These expectations drive the so-called placebo effect, which can affect what happens in our bodies as well. Scientists have known about the placebo effect for decades and have used it as a control in drug trials. Now they are seeing placebos as a window into the neurochemical mechanisms that connect the mind with the body, belief with experience."

Unlocking the Healing Power of You 

Why do Placebos Work?

The Hawthorne Effect

"The distilled narrative of what is the Hawthorne Effect is this – the act of observing people’s behavior changes that behavior. The name derives from experiments conducted between 1924 and 1933 in Western Electric’s factory at Hawthorne, a suburb of Chicago. The experimenters made various changes to the working environment, like changing light levels, and noticed that regardless of the change, performance increased. If they increased light levels, performance increased. If they decreased light levels, performance increased. They eventually concluded that observing the workers was leading to the performance increase, and the actual change in working conditions was irrelevant. This is now referred to as an observer effect, but also the term Hawthorn Effect was coined in 1953 by psychologist J.R.P. French."

The Hawthorne Effect Revisited

The Placebo Effect Gets More Scrutiny

"Hype about the 'amazing' placebo effect says more about the cultural appeal of the idea than it does about solid evidence supporting it. This is a troubling sign that an idea that resonates with experience and cultural meaning may be alluring enough to evade scrutiny, even among scientists. The best evidence indicates that the placebo effect is not a general phenomenon. But at some level it seems that evidence is beside the point; we simply want to believe. Perhaps belief in the placebo effect is itself the ultimate placebo effect."

The Myth of the Placebo Effect

Sports Rituals And Superstitions

"I suspect that getting cupping prior to a race is no more effective than getting a relaxing massage minus any dubious health claims about toxins or chi. Visualizing your floor routine is probably as or more effective than rubbing your lucky charm."

Do Superstitious Rituals Help Performance?

The Middling Power Of The Placebo Effect

"Alternative medicine practitioners love the placebo effect. To many of them, it is proof that the mind can heal the body through the power of positive thinking. While that is a tempting narrative, it is very much a tall tale. The placebo effect is not nearly as powerful as it's billed to be, nor can it be controlled with a simple thought."

Outside the setting of clinical trials, there is no justification for the use of placebos

"It Worked For Me"

An in depth look at the Placebo Effect.  Note, we all are subject to it, thus, the need for controlled studies with all medical interventions.

It is hard to shake the sense that if someone feels better then the treatment must have “worked” in some way.

Why Do Some Physicians Embrace Quackery?

"Ernst is quite correct to conclude, as he does, that “health care professionals need to systematically learn critical thinking early on in their education.” However, in the US at least, medicine itself needs to change the features in it that reinforce the use of alternative medicine, such as the hamster wheel schedule that so many primary care doctors must adhere to in order to support themselves."

We tend to remember the good outcomes and forget the bad. It’s not that we do this intentionally. It’s just that confirmation bias is part of human nature.

Placebo Effects Analyzed

The subject of placebo effects frequently appears when discussing alternative medicine/CAM.  Following is from what I consider a good article on the subject by Steven Novella, MD of the Science-Based Medicine blog and The Skeptics Guide to the Universe podcast:

An In-Depth Look At Placebos

Placebos, Alternative Medicine, and Patient Comfort

More On The Placebo Effect

https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/is-harnessing-the-power-of-placebo-worthwhile-to-treat-anything/

The Truth About Placebos

" - - - we should provide companionship and positive attention without the pseudoscientific magical claims. In fact, you can do this while administering science-based treatments, or just as an intervention in themselves. We used to call this good bedside manner, or just good nursing care, now it is marketed to patients as a separate intervention wrapped in utter nonsense."

This is MUST reading for all who think placebos are ethical and harmless.  Just with religion, all alternatives to medicine are harmful in some way.

https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/the-ethics-of-prescribing-worthless-treatments/

Placebo Effects And Study Designs

Are study designs causing an apparent increase of placebo effects in the USA? An interesting look at placebos.

https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/are-placebos-getting-stronger/

An Update On Placebos

https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/placebo-by-conditioning/

Genetics Influence The Placebo Effect

http://www.medicaldaily.com/genetics-influence-placebo-effect-we-feel-dopamine-and-opioid-pathways-329012

The Nocebo Effect

The other side of the placebo coin:

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20150210-can-you-think-yourself-to-death

The Placebo Effect

The Placebo Effect is not what you may think it is.  A long, but informative, article on the subject.

http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/placebo-are-you-there/