Placebo

When physicians listen to their patients as carefully as they now look at them, placebos will prove unnecessary because physicians will have learned again that they can help many patients through themselves. The placebo is powerless without the physician” (Spiro, 52). . . . But words from the physician can be placebos. If words can exult the health, reassurance and comfort may mobilized ‘healing’ in the sick, even if the process cannot be measured” (53).