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Placebo Quotes

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Placebo Quotes

“The wellbeing of the heart of humanity does not rely on practicality, logicality and factuality alone. Fiction is needed, placebo is needed, and you know what else is needed - a whole lot of impractical and absurd unselfishness.”

FactsFictionKindnessHumanistSelflessnessRational ThinkingIllogicalLogical ThinkingEmpiricismPlacebo
Book:Making Britain Civilized: How to Gain Readmission to The Human Race
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“Although I'm an atheist, I try not to crap all over people's belief in God. It may be nothing more than a placebo, a fairy tale that gives the hopeless hope, but sometimes a little hope is all people need to get through the day. Imagine a unit of soldiers under heavy enemy fire. They are told by their superiors to hold their position, even in the face of overwhelming fire power. The soldiers are being told that reinforcements are on the way, and that thought alone gives them the hope and courage to continue fighting, even if ultimately the reinforcements never arrive. I think some people simply need to believe that God is sending them reinforcements, to get through another day.”

WarGodReligionFaithFightingHopeBeliefCourageAtheismSoldierHopelessFaith In GodHopelessnessSoldiersBelief In GodBelief In SelfAgainst All OddsPlaceboCourage Under FireUnder Fire
Author:Oliver Gaspirtz
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“Our feelings, thoughts, beliefs and even expectations act as filters through which our imaginations initiate the process of generating our particular experienced reality. These filters influence our interpretation of events, our interactions with others, and even our physical health.”

HealingHealthMental HealthPositivityManifestationWellnessWellbeingPower Of Positive ThinkingPlaceboPlacebo Effect
Book:Get Out of Here Alive: Inner Alchemy & Immortality
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“Whether we like it or not, we’re walking placebo and nocebo generators, able to create health miracles or disasters (usually without even realizing we’re the ones doing so) practically in the blink of an eye.”

ConsciousnessHealthMind Body SpiritPower Of Positive ThinkingPlaceboMind Body ConnectionPlacebo EffectEpigeneticsNocebo EffectNocebo
Book:Get Out of Here Alive: Inner Alchemy & Immortality
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“Robert Ader, a research psychologist at the University of Rochester, was engaged in an experiment in which he was trying to condition rats to dislike saccharin-sweetened water. This was similar to the classic experiment of Pavlov in which he conditioned dogs to salivate at the sound of a bell. In order to develop an aversion to the saccharin, Dr. Ader injected the rats with a chemical that made them nauseated so that they associated the sweet water with nausea. What he didn't realize until later was that the chemical be injected, cyclophosphamide, also suppressed the rats immune systems, so that they were dying mysteriously. But the striking thing was that now all he had to do was feed the rats saccharin-sweetened water and their immune systems would be suppressed, even though they had not been injected with the chemical, because they had learned (been conditioned) to associate the sweet water with the nausea-producing chemical. Now, simply feeding saccharin could produce suppression of the immune system. This was a landmark discovery, for it demonstrated that a brain phenomenon, in this case aversion to a taste, could control the immune system. (page 183)”

PsychologyHealthConditioningPlacebo
Book:Healing Back Pain
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“One clear-cut fact does, however, emerge: placebos, prescribed for a paranoid schizophrenic by his authority referent, had served to inhibit for approximately two or three months, not imaginary pains, but somatic ones. This finding is probably the most striking of all the findings reported herein for either Joseph or Leon. It demonstrates most dramatically the positive effects which can be achieved by suggestions originating with the paranoid schizophrenic's own delusional authority figures. This finding is all the more remarkable when one remembers that paranoid schizophrenics are typically negativistic, that, because they view other people with suspicion and mistrust, they resist suggestions that others make. But our data clearly suggest that paranoid schizophrenics are, like everyone else, quite capable of following positive suggestions when they originate with positive referents. In this respect, the major difference between normal people and paranoid schizophrenics lies not so much in the fact that the schizophrenics are less suggestible but in the fact that they have no positive authorities or referents in the real world; if they have any at all, these positive referents exist only in the world of their delusions.”

PsychologyPlacebo1964AuthoritiesSchizophrenicsDad Makes A Few Suggestions
Book:The Three Christs of Ypsilanti: A Psychological Study
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“Raw, alive and honest to the point of disgusting it's listener, Placebo set out to inspire mystery and confusion. Admitting to relishing groups who could make their audience vomit with the sheer intensity of their musical vibrations, Brian clearly knew how to make an impact. Discussing sonic overload with unsettling enthusiasm, he claimed "Some frequencies can make you physically ill or make your bowels loose. The Swans used to do it. By the end of gigs people would vomit because the frequencies were so nasty.”

ConcertsRock MusicPlaceboMusic ConcertsBrian Molko
Book:Misunderstood: The Brian Molko Story
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“For people who are depressed, and especially for those who do not receive enough benefit from medication of for whom the side effects of antidepressants are troubling, the fact that placebos can duplicate much of the effects of antidepressants should be taken as good news. It means that there are other ways of alleviating depression. As we have seen, treatments like psychotherapy and physical exercise are at least as effective as antidepressant drugs and more effective than placebos. In particular, CBT has been shown to lower the risk of relapsing into depression for years after treatment has ended, making it particularly cost effective.”

DepressionGood NewsPsychotherapyAntidepressantsPlaceboCognitive Behavior Therapy
Book:The Emperor's New Drugs: Exploding the Antidepressant Myth
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“In vaccine trials the placebo for the control group is often an aluminum-containing vaccine. That fact alone could account for why so many mainstream-approved research studies have inconclusive and perhaps even contradictory outcomes.”

VaccinesAluminumPlaceboVaccineImmunizationInoculationUnderground Knowledge
Book:Vaccine Science Revisited: Are Childhood Immunizations As Safe As Claimed?
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“Skeptics might argue that pharmaceutical companies will fight anything that casts their products in a dubious light - especially if it results in people using lower doses across the board - but the truth is that, for many drug companies, reliable information on the placebo effect can't come soon enough. To pass muster, a drug must outperform placebo. But a 2001 study of antidepressant drug trials showed that while drug efficacy is rising, placebo rates are rising faster. It's almost ironic; the factors behind this are many and varied, but a significant contributor is our society's knowledge of - and belief in - the power of medicines. The pharmaceutical industry's palpable success means that unless something radical happens, it could soon be, like the Red Queen, running to stand still.”

PlaceboPharmaceutical Industry
Book:13 Things That Don't Make Sense: The Most Baffling Scientific Mysteries of Our Time
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“En el efecto placebo una sustancia inocua pero que aparentemente no lo es produce un efecto real por la falsa conciencia de su no inocuidad. En la experiencia televisiva un producto aparentemente inocuo produce un efecto real precisamente por la falta de conciencia de su no inocuidad. El efecto placebo produce sus efectos terapéuticos gracias a las expectativas de la persona. La experiencia televisiva produce sus efectos socializadores precisamente por la falta de expectativas. Si en el efecto placebo el paciente abre las puertas de su psiquismo por la fe que tiene en el tratamiento, en la experiencia televisiva el espectador deja abierta las suyas por ingenuidad y desconocimiento del poder socializador del medio.”

PlaceboTelevisiónEfectoProductoInocuaSustancia
Book:Televisión subliminal: Socialización mediante comunicaciones inadvertidas
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“Only massage therapists seemed to be informed about trigger points and referred pain, and only exceptional individuals among them (in my own experience at least) were treating trigger points effectively. What's more, the burgeoning variety of unproven modalities offered by massage therpaists gave the profession such an aura of flakiness that the elegant science of myofascial pain got unfairly confused with treatments whose results could easily be attributed to the placebo effect.”

PainIndividualMy OwnResultsEffectsProfessionVarietyTherapyConfusedInjuryTreatmentElegantExceptionalTriggersTherapistsMassageAurasPlaceboPlacebo EffectMassage Therapists
Author:Clair Davies
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“Either it is true that a medicine works or it isn't. It cannot be false in the ordinary sense but true in some alternative sense. If a therapy or treatment is anything more than a placebo, properly conducted double-blind trials, statistically analyzed, will eventually bring it through with flying colours. Many candidates for recognition as orthodox medicines fail the test and are summarily dropped. The alternative label should not (though, alas, it does) provide immunity from the same fate.”

IfsShouldDoeFateFailingAtheismOrdinaryTestsBlindMedicinePositive AtheismFlyingTrialsRecognitionAlternativesLabelsTherapyCandidatesColourTreatmentOrthodoxAlasImmunityPlacebo
Author:Richard Dawkins
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“If the brain expects that a treatment will work, it sends healing chemicals into the bloodstream, which facilitates that. That's why the placebo effect is so powerful for every type of healing. And the opposite is equally true and equally powerful: When the brain expects that a therapy will not work, it doesn't. It's called the "nocebo" effect.”

IfsPowerfulHealingBrainEffectsTypeOppositesTherapyTreatmentWorking ItChemicalsFacilitatePlaceboPlacebo Effect
Author:Bruce H. Lipton
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“Worship is a meeting at the center so that our lives are centered in God and not lived eccentrically. We worship so that we live in response to and from this center, the living God. Failure to worship consigns us to a life of spasms and jerks, at the mercy of every advertisement, every seduction, every siren. Without worship we live manipulated and manipulating lives. We move in either frightened panic or deluded lethargy as we are, in turn, alarmed by specters and soothed by placebos. If there is no center, there is no circumference.”

IfsMovingTurnsOur LivesWorshipMercyMeetingsResponseFrightenedPanicSeductionJerkAdvertisementsDeludedSirensLethargyPlacebo
Author:Edmund Clowney
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“Consider the clinicaltrials by which drugs are tested in human subjects.5 Before a new drug can enter the market, its manufacturer must sponsor clinicaltrials to show the Food and Drug Administration that the drug is safe and effective, usually as compared with a placebo or dummy pill. The results of all the trials (there may be many) are submitted to the FDA, and if one or two trials are positive—that is, they show effectiveness without serious risk—the drug is usually approved, even if all the other trials are negative.”

IfsHumansMayTwoShowsResultsRiskSubjectsSeriousDrugSafeNegativeTrialsAdministrationTestedPillsEffectivenessApprovedSponsorsFdaDummyPlacebo
Author:Marcia Angell
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“Interviewer: [What do you get up to] In real time? Brian Molko: I go on Placebo sites and have a terrible time trying to convince fans it's actually me. No one ever believes it. I've spent about four hours, giving away intimate details about myself that I'd never tell a journalist, in an effort to prove that it's me.”

GivingTryingBelieveRealHoursEffortFourFansGoes OnTerribleProveDetailsGet UpJournalistIntimateConvinceSiteBrianInterviewersPlaceboTerrible Times
Author:Brian Molko
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