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Quote by Irving Kirsch

“Physicians do not systematically prescribe placebos to their patients. Hence they have no way of comparing the effects of the drugs they prescribe to placebos. When they prescribe a treatment and it works, their natural tendency is to attribute the cure to the treatment. But there are thousands of treatments that have worked in clinical practice throughout history. Powdered stone worked. So did lizard's blood, and crocodile dung, and pig's teeth and dolphin's genitalia and frog's sperm. Patients have been given just about every ingestible - though often indigestible - substance imaginable. They have been 'purged, puked, poisoned, sweated, and shocked', and if these treatments did not kill them, they may have made them better.”

Quote by Irving Kirsch

Work

The Emperor's New Drugs: Exploding the Antidepressant Myth

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Author

Irving Kirsch
Irving Kirsch

Irving Kirsch is a renowned psychologist, born on March 7, 1943. He has conducted extensive research in the field of cognitive psychology, particularly on the effectiveness of psychotherapy. Professor Kirsch's work has had a profound impact on the field of psychotherapy. more

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“Read, read, read, read, my unlearned reader! read- or by the knowledge of the great saint Paraleipomenon- I tell you before-hand, you had better throw down the book at once; for without much reading, by which your reverence knows I mean much knowledge, you will no more be able to penetrate the moral of the next marbled page (motley emblem of my work!) than the world with all its sagacity has been able to unravel the many opinions, transactions, and truths which still lie mystically hid under the dark veil of the black one.”