Placebo Talks Modern perspectives on placebos in society

Amir Raz, Canada Research Chair, Faculty of Medicine, McGill University, Canada,Cory Harris, Assistant Professor, Department of Biology, University of Ottawa, Canada

Professor Raz earned his Ph.D. in Brain Science from the Interdisciplinary Center for Computational Neuroscience at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem under the supervision of the late Professor Shlomo Bentin. He then went on to a post-doctoral fellowship with Professor Michael Posner at the Weill Medical College of Cornell University, where he took on a faculty position thereafter. He then joined the faculty at Columbia University in the City of New York and later became the Canada Research Chair at McGill University in Montreal, Canada.

Cory Harris became interested in placebo effects while studying traditional medicines in collaboration with First Nations Elders and Healers in Quebec, Canada. While their research on herbal medicine revealed a wealth of pharmacological activity, the therapeutic value of traditional healing extended far beyond bioactive molecules. Cory earned his Ph.D. in Biology and Biochemistry before completing post-doctoral fellowships at McGill University's Centre for Indigenous Peoples Nutrition and the Lady Davis Institute for Medical Research in Montreal. In 2013, Cory joined the Department of Biology at the University of Ottawa, where his research continues to explore Indigenous and alternative medicine using an interdisciplinary lens.

Preface, Cory Harris and Amir Raz
Foreword, Anne Harrington
Part I: Introduction
1. Placebos and beyond, Cory harris and Veronica de Jong
Part II: The Practitioner Lens
2. Antidepressants and the placebo effect, Irving Kirsch
3. Active expectations: Insights on the prescription of sub-therapeutic doses of antidepressants for depression, Veronica de Jong and Amir Raz
4. Justifying deceptive placebos, Bennett Foddy
5. Trust and the placebo effect, Marie Prevost and Amir Raz
6. Placebo science in medical education, Natasha Campbell and Amir Raz
Part III: The Cultural Lens
7. Looking at placebos through a cultural lens and finding meaning, Daniel Moerman
8. Unpacking the placebo response: Lessons from ethnographic studies of healing, Laurence Kirmayer
9. Pills in a Pretty Box: Social Sources of the Placebo Effect, Stewart Justman
10. Healing words: the placebo effect and journalism at the mind-body boundary, Steve Silberman
Part IV: The Placebo Lens
11. Placebolicious: the many flavours of placebo in diet and food culture, Cory Harris and Timothy Jones
12. Suggestion, Placebos, and False Memories, Elizabeth Loftus and Melanie Takarangi
13. Fetish as Placebo: The Social History of a Sexual Idea, Edward Shorter
14. 'Take two and see me in the morning': Reflections on the political placebo effect, Michael Orsini and Paul Saurette
Part V: Concluding Remarks
15. Placebo Science: New paradigms and future directions, Amir Raz