“In a broad sense, placebo effects are improvements in patients’ symptoms that are attributable to their participation in the therapeutic encounter, with its rituals, symbols, and interactions,” they write.
In other words, as well as through sham medication, a placebo effect may occur through a process whereby the “doctor is drug”, in which empathy, an emotional engagement with the physician and the laying on of hands all play a part in ameliorating a person’s symptoms.
Vinciane Rycroft considers the value of teaching compassion in schools… Many commentators are now calling for children to be educated in empathy and compassion. Bill Drayton for example, one of the fathers of social entrepreneurship, calls on…
A study has shown that breathing in a compound containing oxytocin makes women calmer and friendlier and men more sensitive during arguments. Scientists might be a bit sniffy about this latest research, but a nasal spray containing a hormone can…
On 17th September 2013 we held our fourth annual lecture, “Zero Degrees of Empathy: Exploring explanations of human cruelty & kindness”. Simon Baron-Cohen, Professor of Developmental Psychopathology at the University of Cambridge delivered the keyn…
Criticizing approaches that devalue human lives, especially the lives of those who suffer from serious illness, Pope Francis highlighted the importance of offering increased care and concern instead, urging people to demonstrate a compassion that does …
