Dr. Ellen Langer

Everything can be changed.

If something doesn't work, change it.

But you know what happened is that placebos get a bad rap.

Because if somebody gets better with a placebo, says, no, no, the pain was real.

As if we have a mind and a body, and that body was really experiencing pain, and now all you've done is screwed around with my mind.

It's one thing.

You also can't sell the drug.

Well, that's what I would say.

That's, in my view, the reason that placebos get a bad rap.

If you're part of a pharmaceutical company, you have to do a trial with real medication and a placebo.

And in order to bring this drug to market to make billions of dollars, that drug has to outperform the placebo.

You're not rooting for the placebo.

And nevertheless, even when it does outperform placebo,

The difference is often small.

So many people getting help just by this sugar pill.

And then when you say to people, look, if it's not the pill that's making you better, what's making you better?

The belief.

Yeah.

Well, one of the things that bothered me is when people have cancer and then the cancer is gone and the medical world tells you it's in remission.

Now, that was fine years ago, decades ago, before we knew that stress was crucial to one's physical health.