Talking Cures and Placebo Effects (International Perspectives in Philosophy and Psychiatry)

Psychoanalysis has had to defend itself from a barrage of criticism throughout its history. Nevertheless, there are many who claim to have been helped by this therapy, and who claim to have achieved genuine insight into their condition. But do the psychodynamic or exploratory psychotherapies - the so-called talking cures - really help clients get in touch with their "inner", "real" or "true" selves? Do clients make important discoveries about the real causes of their behaviours, emotions, and personalities? Are their insights, and the psychodynamic interpretations. Read more... Abstract: Psychoanalysis has had to defend itself from much criticism throughout its history. In this book David Jopling argues that the changes achieved through therapy are really just functions of placebos that rally the mind's native healing powers. It is a bold new work that delivers yet another blow to Freud and his followers. Read more... Content: Placebos and psychotherapy -- Placebo effects -- Self-exploration, insight, and healing -- An alternative hypothesis -- The principle of differentialness -- Some preliminary objections -- Kinds of insight -- Insights true and false -- Case history 1 -- Case history 2 -- Case history 3 -- Insight research -- Clinical psychology's quicksilver -- A formal definition of Insight -- The standard view -- The standard view: a model -- Exploratory validity -- Therapeutic specificity -- Interpretive agency -- Therapeutically effective insight -- Intraclinical Confirmation -- The standard view: criticisms -- A common factors criticism -- A cognitive-psychological criticism -- Introspection, causal self-attribution, and Insight -- Some skeptical criticisms -- Placebos and placebo effects -- Charms and fair words -- The shaman Quesalid -- Janet's theriac -- Contemporary research on placebos -- Beecher's powerful placebo and placebo confounds -- Explanatory approaches -- Shapiro's definition of placebo -- Grünbaum's definition of placebo -- Brody's definition of placebo -- A cognitive definition of placebo -- Insight placebos -- Pseudo-insights -- Philosophical pseudo-insights -- Insight placebos -- Insight artifacts -- Artifactual dreams -- Artifactual beliefs -- Artifactual symptoms -- The narrativist objection -- The identity objection -- Placebos, deception, and self-deception -- Patients' awareness of placebos -- Grünbaum's critique of Freud -- Self-deception -- Open placebos -- The ethics of giving placebos -- The ethics of giving open placebos -- The logic of belief: some hypotheses -- Experimental design with open placebos: hypothesis -- The administration of open placebos: hypothesis -- The neurobiology of open placebo response: hypothesis -- Review of an open placebo study -- The ethics of giving placebos in psychotherapy.

Psychoanalysis has had to defend itself from a barrage of criticism throughout its history. Nevertheless, there are many who claim to have been helped by this therapy, and who claim to have achieved genuine insight into their condition. But do the psychodynamic or exploratory psychotherapies - the so-called talking cures - really help clients get in touch with their inner, real or true selves? Do clients make important discoveries about the real causes of their behaviours, emotions, and personalities? Are their insights, and the psychodynamic interpretations offered them by their psychotherapists, true? Many think so.

Talking Cures and Placebo Effects contests this view. It defends the unpopular hypothesis that therapeutic changes in the psychodynamic psychotherapies are sometimes functions of powerful placebos that rally the mind's native healing powers in much the same way that placebo pills rally the body's native healing powers; and that psychodynamic insights and interpretations are themselves placebos. Few clients know this, and fewer still are informed of the potential placebo effects at play in exploratory psychotherapy, and of the consequent risks of self-misinterpretation and self-deception. Thus does Talking Cures and Placebo Effects target a host of problems that lie at the very intersection of the epistemology, ethics, scientific status, and public accountability of the talking cures.

Psychoanalysis has had to defend itself from a barrage of criticism throughout its history. Nevertheless, there are many who claim to have been helped by this therapy, and who claim to have achieved genuine insight into their condition. But do the psychodynamic or exploratory psychotherapies - the so-called talking cures - really help clients get in touch with their "inner", "real" or "true" selves? Do clients make important discoveries about the real causes of their behaviours, emotions, and personalities? Are their insights, and the psychodynamic interpretations offered them by their psychotherapists, true? Many think so. Talking Cures and Placebo Effects contests this view. It defends the unpopular hypothesis that therapeutic changes in the psychodynamic psychotherapies are sometimes functions of powerful placebos that rally the mind's native healing powers in much the same way that placebo pills rally the body's native healing powers; and that psychodynamic insights and interpretations are themselves placebos. Few clients know this, and fewer still are informed of the potential placebo effects at play in exploratory psychotherapy, and of the consequent risks of self-misinterpretation and self-deception. Thus does Talking Cures and Placebo Effects target a host of problems that lie at the very intersection of the epistemology, ethics, scientific status, and public accountability of the talking cures. "Talking Cures and Placebo Effects defends the unpopular hypothesis that therapeutic changes in the psychodynamic psychotherapies are sometimes functions of powerful placebos that rally the mind's native healing powers in much the same way that placebo pills rally the body's native healing powers; and that psychodynamic insights and interpretations are themselves placebos. Few clients know this, and fewer still are informed of the potential placebo effects at play in exploratory psychotherapy, and of the consequent risks of self-misinterpretation and self-deception. Thus Talking Cures and Placebo Effects targets a host of problems that lie at the intersection of the epistemology, ethics, scientific status, and public accountability of the talking cures."--BOOK JACKET Psychodynamic psychotherapy and psychoanalysis have had to defend themselves from a barrage of criticisms throughout their history. In this book David Jopling argues that the changes achieved through therapy are really just functions of placebos that rally the mind's native healing powers. It is a bold new work that delivers yet another blow to Freud and his followers.