Ted Kaptchuk Quotations

It may be that it is the act of applying the needles that is important.

To some extent, placebos are about the effect of the human imagination.

These findings suggest the medical ritual of a device can deliver an enhanced placebo effect beyond that of a placebo pill. There are many conditions in which ritual is irrelevant when compared with drugs, such as in treatment of a bacterial infection, but the other extreme may also be true: In some cases, the ritual may be the critical component.

It's upside down research. We investigated whether a sham acupuncture device has a greater placebo effect than an inert pill.