In a seminal publication in the latest issue of “Frontiers in Psychology”, a CRC research team from the Universities of Marburg, Giessen and Essen investigates how treatment expectations influence treatment success and how homeopathy uses these effects.
Patients' expectations have a considerable influence on the course of illnesses and the effectiveness of treatments. These placebo and nocebo effects have been demonstrated in many large international studies. Our research aims to better understand the influence of expectations on the effectiveness of medical treatments and to use these findings to optimize therapies.
Homeopathy is often presented as having no effect at all because no effect beyond the placebo effect has been proven. Globules do not contain any pharmacologically active ingredients that could rationally explain an effect, yet both patients and homeopaths report positive effects for various disorders. How can this be explained?
Psychological psychotherapist Dr. Marcel Wilhelm, research associate in the Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy working group at the University of Marburg, describes the background to the publication: “With this article, we want to show which mechanisms we believe are used in homeopathy so that treatment effects occur despite the lack of active ingredients.”
“We don't need globules to take advantage of the good aspects of homeopathic treatments,” confirms Prof. Dr. Ulrike Bingel, spokesperson of the CRC. The article is also an appeal to evidence-based medicine to systematically integrate these psycho-neuro-biological mechanisms into treatment concepts in order to improve the success of gold standard therapies. “What is done particularly well in homeopathy is to optimize treatment expectations, including through empathic communication, significantly more time in conversation than in conventional medical treatments, certain rules for taking globules and much more,” says Wilhelm. The team of authors recommends making greater use of communication and contextual factors in any treatment option in order to promote treatment success. “We need a science-based medicine that uses these mechanisms, which we know from placebo research and which are used in homeopathy,” demands Prof. Dr. Winfried Rief, Professor of Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy at the University of Marburg and deputy spokesperson of the CRC 289.
Read the original publication in the journal Frontiers in Psychology here.
