Garner doesn't seem to understand the topic of placebo and nocebo well. If a person is told that they're about to receive treatment that will reduce their symptoms, then the person's mood will improve and their behavior will change to reflect the expectation. It's not surprising that the person will be less concerned if they're told they will improve. The level of concern will affect how people rate their symptoms. What is often seen as a placebo/nocebo effect in reality consists of several different effects, such as improvement due to passing of time.
If you can understand the difference between being told to be a lottery winner and actually winning then you can understand the difference between a placebo and a real treatment. Being told to have won will also have positive effects for a while.
There's a lot of evidence on placebos and their objective impact on illness and as far as I know this evidence consistently shows no meaningful effects.
Trying to cure ME/CFS via manipulation of perception implies that the illness merely a perception problem with no underlying biological causes. The evidence doesn't support that view. We've had studies like PACE that operated on this assumption and it showed no reduction in disability despite a more positive" perception of symptoms.
I would also be worried about causing harm. Downplaying the illness could lead to worse management of the illness.
They are also pretending to be blissfully unaware of the coercive situation that most medical and related situations create, I do not know how of course, given that everyone knows you don't upset people otherwise it will go on your record etc.
So the real reason why this area's 'invention' of removing the standard of having
blinded and randomised controls is because the placebo effect isn't down to the patient but social pressure and implementation of other pressures forcing answers to be different.
Heck even in a friend situation if someone kindly gave you a special tea or little massage for your bad headache that you'd rather have refused but they were oh so keen, then it takes a certain type (on both sides, because the friend's personality making it so awkward other friends will be required to punish you for being rude) to say 'no it didn't work at all, but thanks'. And even then the thanks is polite coercion.
This area deliberately markets to supporters and those around ill people who are in a position to coerce them, not to the ill person. With promises that their treatment works and if it either doesn't work or the ill person doesn't do it then it is the ill person's fault. Along with a lot of slander about the ill person suggesting they don't even know their own mind so don't listen to them if they say it neither works or that none of that rubbish being stuck on their personality is correct. In BS terms polited over - but not much.
When it gets as bad as it has done for ME/CFS then even healthcare professionals have been lied to and told that it works and 'doesn't harm' (even when that hasn't been tested and all proof of harm has been ignored or dismissed) so that those who don't get better or indeed get worse from treatments that it turns out weren't helpful when the data was properly analysed the patient is branded not just a liar but as the classic article quoted a nurse "the ba**ards just don't want to get better". So yes, more harm on harm. What does someone say in that unsafe situation?
Normal trials or experiments that take place under standard licensing regulations (which this exempts itself from) use double-blinded in order that if a staff member is encouraging a more positive answer they don't know whether it will get subtracted from the total because they are working with someone in the control condition.
This area takes it to a new level by actively telling anyone who gives the wrong answer that it means they are still mad or confused or not trying hard enough. As part of the treatment, nevermind the test which just happens to be the same questions. I can't think of something more in need of proper methodology therefore.
If you took out the brainwashing answers to the test (which they claim is the treatment) then you should have the
what the treatment actually changes
beyond that. But they won't measure it.
For example most old days things for making someone more confident at maths might have a curriculum where the subject is taught different techniques to try and does lots of maths practice. And
then both their confidence can be tested as well as their ability.
Because this whole industry/area claims to work in the reverse: eg give the confidence and apparently that will heal what they
claim is their interpretation of the condition, they still try and get with directly only teaching people to give more confident/positive answers and then only testing whether those answers are more confident/positive, but nothing about the condition itself.
IN FACT
because of the placebo, the standard norm for years has of course been that all answers due to said placebo should be being subtracted (rather than displayed as 'the effect') as error. Hence why this sort of thing is called propaganda because it is trying to addle people's perceptions of norms. Those who are onlookers that is. So that they accept things that aren't research for good reasons that everyone understood as if they are.
And gaslight people with their own words that have been put into their own mouths by coercion.
