
Look into my eyes: The power of hypnosis  - dimas
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20427291.200-look-into-my-eyes-the-power-of-hypnosis.html
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pmichaud
I have my doubts, but my wife has successfully used hypnosis to quit smoking
and get over a fear of the dentist. I think it's placebo, but I don't tell her
that -- if it works for her, I don't want to risk undermining the effect.

~~~
stcredzero
If there was a way for companies to patent the placebo effect, it would have a
lot more research behind it!

~~~
amalcon
There are a fair number of classic studies on the placebo effect, but nothing
recent that I'm aware of. For example:

\- Apparently the placebo effect has become more pronounced over time: an
analysis of the placebo arms of various clinical trials showed that more
recent ones tend to be more reliable

\- Similarly, placebos are more potent in trials of new drugs, than in trials
re-assessing the effects of older drugs

\- The all-time classic is the study that shows that the placebo effect works
_even if the patient knows that the pill has no medicine in it_.

~~~
joeyo
I'm not familiar with the studies you are referring to, so what I am about to
suggest may have been controlled for, but I wonder if the apparent increase in
strength of the placebo effect is simply due to recent drugs being _less_
effective (with respect to placebo). Or alternatively, perhaps there are more
new drugs these days for treating conditions where it is quantitatively
difficult to measure the outcome-- think: anxiety or depression not high blood
pressure or pneumonia.

~~~
jcl
This result was mentioned previously on HN:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=783912>

Apparently, not only are some new drugs failing to pass a test showing that
they are more effective than placebos, but old drugs that previously passed a
placebo test might fail if they were tested today.

They give a number of possible reasons in the article why this might occur.
One hypothesis was that suitable trial patients are not as sick as they used
to be, since the really bad cases today would be on drugs that didn't exist
back then (which makes them ineligible for the trial). Another hypothesis was
that trials today are performed in more third-world locations, where the
quality-of-life difference between standard medical care and a drug trial is
more pronounced, amplifying the placebo effect. But no one knows for sure why
it's happening.

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biohacker42
According to Penn and Teller, there's not nearly as much power as advertised.
I don't want to link to copyrighted material, so here's a link to a google
search:
[http://video.google.com/videosearch?hl=en&safe=off&q...](http://video.google.com/videosearch?hl=en&safe=off&q=penn%20and%20teller%20bullshit%20hypnosis&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wv#)

~~~
amalcon
If we're looking to magicians for this stuff, why not go straight to the man
himself? James Randi is very critical of hypnosis, and has quite a track
record as a skeptic.

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pgbovine
British illusionist Derren Brown does a lot of stuff with hypnosis and
subliminal influencing of people ... there are a ton of 5 to 10-minute-long
YouTube videos of his sketches. He never goes into what he thinks might be the
science behind what he does, but some of the results are fascinating.

~~~
Luc
Danger, danger, illusionist alert! Derren Brown is a 'mentalist', that is he
performs illusions under the guise of mental tricks, psychology, the power of
the mind etc. In reality this is just a guise, and when for example his
professed method is hypnosis, it probably isn't, and instead misderection,
slight of hand, gimmicks etc are involved. It's just another way to wow the
public, and the public loves to believe it. Read '13 Steps to Mentalism' by
Corrinda, it is one of the classic texts on mentalism and will get you wise to
a lot of this stuff. That said, Derren is one of the masters in this field...

~~~
hussong
Most of the fun with Derren Brown stems from wondering what is a real effect
and what is just elaborate trickery. He's taken that to a new level by often
explaining in detail how the manipulation works--but then the explanation
itself might as well be a misdirection.

