Placebo effect: a psychosomatic component, or only an aggregate of other biases?

[Trish]

Those examples are short term immediate reactions to an unexpected and discomforting situation. Some people faint at the sight of blood. That doesn't have anything to do with chronic or serious illness.

 

[V.R.T.]

Those examples are short term immediate reactions to an unexpected and discomforting situation. Some people faint at the sight of blood. That doesn't have anything to do with chronic or serious illness.

Any nocebo effect that is even vaguely credible is a short term thing like this. It's criminal that phenomena like these have been conflated with the symptoms of people who are sick and suffering long term.

 

[V.R.T.]

It's literally an ad, she's promoting her own book. What is this even?

This is plain laughable, it's like any random fake Facebook story, or some of the weird stuff you can find in the conspiracy fantasy communities.

So are those examples. One of is from the late 90s, the other from 60s. They are terrible examples. Medicine has been desperately trying to prove this stuff for well over a century and hasn't come up with anything.

This is horseshoe theory in action. It's similar to any random stuff from QAnon communities.

Recycling the 'asthma is psychosomatic' trope from the fin-de-sicle era are we? Proust's father would be proud.

 

[Lou B Lou]

It's literally an ad, she's promoting her own book. What is this even?

This is plain laughable, it's like any random fake Facebook story, or some of the weird stuff you can find in the conspiracy fantasy communities.

So are those examples. One of is from the late 90s, the other from 60s. They are terrible examples. Medicine has been desperately trying to prove this stuff for well over a century and hasn't come up with anything.

This is horseshoe theory in action. It's similar to any random stuff from QAnon communities.

The hardback edition of Helen Pilcher's book 'This book may cause side effects. Why our minds are making us sick' was published this week (07/05/2026) - it's also available as Audiobook and on Kindle.

So the Guardian article IS pure book promotion

So we can look forward to even more promotions, Press and Radio interviews etc when the paperback edition is published. The name Helen Pilcher is familiar to me from some years ago, but I can't quite remember where I know her name from.
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