Survey: Half of US doctors use placebo treatments

[Thorne]

People are very good at convincing themselves their treatments are working. So much so even the survival rates can go up from placebo's. Patients are both less likely to experience symptoms and less likely to complain about them when they think they are already doing something about it. This is the reason medicine tests use double blind trials.

That's all true, which is why a reputable physician wouldn't prescribe a placebo until he'd exhausted all other possibilities. But in the end, if you have a patient with inconsistent symptoms who has no testable problems, you might prescribe a placebo. Let's face it: the patient's reaction to the placebo can be as informative as any other tests the doctor may have done.

The key point, though, is that the placebo is not prescribed lightly but only after a thorough familiarization with the patient. And this may (possibly, should) include a psychiatric analysis.