Our request: Tell us your personal story about placebo or nocebo effects!

Medicine also lives from stories. Medicine is also shaped by people’s stories. This is why we’re gathering patients’ diverse experiences regarding their own expectations for the Collaborative Research Centre “Treatment Expectation”. Almost everyone has experienced a positive placebo or negative nocebo effect.

Sometimes they are amusing, but not always: someone feels clearly tipsy and later realizes that they have been served non-alcoholic beer by mistake. The next person's scalp itches suspiciously after the big sign “Attention, lice infestation in the bear group” has been put up outside the children's room. And if mom blows the dandelion out of the window, that helps too. But if you drink a beer at the Oktoberfest and hear a rumor afterwards that the dishwasher was faulty that evening, you can get herpes.