ReviewPhilosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences2011
Placebo studies and ritual theory: a comparative analysis of Navajo, acupuncture and biomedical healing.
Review in Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, 2011. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 41 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
41 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 170 citations in OpenAlex.
- The temporal trend of placebo response in migraine prevention from 1990 to 2021: a systematic literature review and meta-analysis with regression.The journal of headache and pain · 2023Pooled it
- The effectiveness of acupuncture research across components of the trauma spectrum response (tsr): a systematic review of reviews.Systematic reviews · 2012Pooled it
- Open-Label Placebos as Adjunct for the Preventive Treatment of Migraine: A Randomized Clinical Trial.JAMA network open · 2025Trial
- Investigating the Relationship Between Cannabis Expectancies and Anxiety, Depression, and Pain Responses After Acute Flower and Edible Cannabis Use.Cannabis and cannabinoid research · 2025Trial
- Lay perspectives of the open-label placebo rationale: a qualitative study of participants in an experimental trial.BMJ open · 2021Trial
- Manual acupuncture versus sham acupuncture and usual care for prophylaxis of episodic migraine without aura: multicentre, randomised clinical trial.BMJ (Clinical research ed.) · 2020Trial
- Trial
- Ways of Hoping: Navigating the Paradox of Hope and Despair in Chronic Pain.Culture, medicine and psychiatry · 2016Trial
- Electroacupuncture for thalidomide/bortezomib-induced peripheral neuropathy in multiple myeloma: a feasibility study.Journal of hematology & oncology · 2014Trial
- Trial
- Are all placebo effects equal? Placebo pills, sham acupuncture, cue conditioning and their association.PloS one · 2013Trial
- Nonconscious activation of placebo and nocebo pain responses.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2012Trial
- Active albuterol or placebo, sham acupuncture, or no intervention in asthma.The New England journal of medicine · 2011Trial
- Article
- Patient-Practitioner-Environment Synchronization: Four-Step Process for Integrating Interprofessional and Distinctive Competencies in Osteopathic Practice-A Scoping Review with Integrative Hypothesis.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
- Working with patients' treatment expectations - what we can learn from homeopathy.Frontiers in psychology · 2024Review
- Harnessing placebo: Lessons from psychedelic science.Journal of psychopharmacology (Oxford, England) · 2023Review
- Historical Osteopathic Principles and Practices in Contemporary Care: An Anthropological Perspective to Foster Evidence-Informed and Culturally Sensitive Patient-Centered Care: A Commentary.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Article
- Differences between experimental and placebo arms in manual therapy trials: a methodological review.BMC medical research methodology · 2022Review
- Grounded in Biology: Why the Context-Dependency of Psychedelic Drug Effects Means Opportunities, Not Problems for Anthropology and Pharmacology.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
1 author at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Using a comparative analysis of Navajo healing ceremonials, acupuncture and biomedical treatment, this essay examines placebo studies and ritual theory as mutually interpenetrating disciplines. Healing rituals create a receptive person susceptible to the influences of authoritative culturally sanctioned 'powers'. The healer provides the sufferer with imaginative, emotional, sensory, moral and aesthetic input derived from the palpable symbols and procedures of the ritual process-in the process fusing the sufferer's idiosyncratic narrative unto a universal cultural mythos. Healing rituals involve a drama of evocation, enactment, embodiment and evaluation in a charged atmosphere of hope and uncertainty. Experimental research into placebo effects demonstrates that routine biomedical pharmacological and procedural interventions contain significant ritual dimensions. This research also suggests that ritual healing not only represents changes in affect, self-awareness and self-appraisal of behavioural capacities, but involves modulations of symptoms through neurobiological mechanisms. Recent scientific investigations into placebo acupuncture suggest several ways that observations from ritual studies can be verified experimentally. Placebo effects are often described as 'non-specific'; the analysis presented here suggests that placebo effects are the 'specific' effects of healing rituals.
Indexed as
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.