Describing Placebo Phenomena in Medicine: A Linguistic Approach

Publication date: Available online 17 August 2018Source: International Review of NeurobiologyAuthor(s): Roland SussexAbstractThe present paper reviews how language and communication are used to describe placebo phenomena in medicine, with particular reference at key points to the question of pain. Selected aspects of placebo language are submitted to lexical, grammatical and semantic analysis. We distinguish three uses of placebo, with three semantic components: “pleasing,” inert medication or procedure, and what is often called “deception.” The three uses of placebo are:Placebo-treatment, which combines all three semantic components: “pleasing” patients with inert treatments, and possibly with “deception.”Placebo-trial, which refers to the closely defined inert control in Randomized Controlled Trials.Placebo-rapport, which covers all aspects of the health care encounter, excluding therapeutic interventions, but including psychosocial factors which can have a beneficial effect on the patient.Three key conclusions emerge from this analysis. First, the “deception” connotation of placebo found in placebo-treatment can contaminate the use of placebo-trial and especially placebo-rapport. Second, the enlarged “pleasing” framework of placebo-rapport, which includes the benefits of quality appropriate and helpful medical care, forces us to ask whether placebo-trial in Randomized Controlled Trials has in fact been a neutral baseline control. Biopsychosocial and...

Source: International Review of Neurobiology - August 18, 2018 Category: Neuroscience Source Type: research