Placebo Effect and Bach's Remedies



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Hello I am an undergraduate Psychology student in my final year, I am currently doing a dissertation on the placebo effect and think I have come across some interesting ideas.

I stumbled upon your webpage on THE PLACEBO EFFECT-THE POWER OF THE SUGAR PILL and found it helped me with my work. I really hope you can help me in my work.

I really need someone to help me by giving me an opinon on my work: I am using Edward Bach's flower remdies and testing whether or not they work as a placebo effect or not, and I am doing questionaires and trails on particpants to test wether there perceptions are enhanced, I want to see if there is a link between the placebo effect and telepathy,
telekinesis as i feel it is the same type of mind power which if harnnessed could have fascinating implications. Please help me with my work as I really need a Psychologist's opinon on it?

So there it is, dont go stealing my ideas now as am trusting you here!!!! Hope you think it is a good idea? But really i need someone to be honest as I really need to know as I want  to pass my degree...

Can't wait to hear from you!

D.
 

Dear D.,
first of all congratulations on your final year and on the subject you have
chosen for your dissertation.
The placebo effect is not related at all to parapsychological phenomena: my
opinion is that you will be wasting your time and risk your credibility with
your profs if you follow this path. In fact, the placebo effect, as you may
have read in our paper, is just a case of pavlovian conditioning, a fairly
well known neural phenomenon studied since the beginning of the 20th
century. Bach remedies have no pharmacological effect at all (there is no
scientific basis for it), so if there is an effect, it must be a placebo.
But please be careful with your experimental design: observational studies
only will not solve the riddle, because you need controls using the
so-called "double blind" placebo-controlled prospective trial. This works in
the following way: a group of patients with similar afflictions (let's say,
heartburn) are divided randomly into two samples: one receives the Bach
remedy, and the other receives a simple solution, with no active compound on
it. Both groups do not know what they are getting and they are forewarned of
that. The experimenter also doesn't know which, because the vials are
identified by random numbers which are later matched with a record kept by a
third person. Then you must use proper statistical tools, such as variance
analysis, to test the hypotheses that there is no difference between the
groups. If this proves true, than Bach remedies have no effect larger than
placebo's. Got it?
And please forget these ideas about "brain power". This is not scientific
and will put you into a hot water with your committee.

Best of luck

Prof. Renato M.E. Sabbatini
Medical School, State University of Campinas, Brazil.

P.S.: Let me say that you have displayed a quite unproper attitude by
distrusting me about your "ideas". Ideas do not exist until they are
rigorously tested according to the scientific method. If you distrust me you
should not have contacted me. An apology is expected.

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Ok thanks for the your opinoin  you have given me some sturdy answers which
is just what i needed at this stage. I thought my idea was pretty good but i
feel that i should leave the dissertation to simply testing the effecincy of
the Bach Remedies now! I really dont want to fail  yet the idea of doing my
dissertation on the Bach remedies alone seems alittle unadventerous thats
all! I am going to fail! Do you think that it is too dull and straight
forward?, I have done loads of reaseach on this topic and fear that its just
too late to change. Do you have any interesting suggestions?????

Right well i guess you've aided me on my pitiful path and now i will have to
just leave you alone then?  (I am sobbing you know, as i really did think
that there was a chance that placebo mind power could be harnessed using the
Bach remdies -on a minor scale and that it is the same as telepathic power?)
Back to the drawing board and I only  have one week..   Yours Thankfully
D.

Volta



 
 

Copyright Silvia Helena Cardoso, PhD
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