[chvid]

The rabbit hole is probably very deep.

But some of these things are well-understood. So if you test a pill and it is green, tiny, makes your tommy hurt for 10 minutes - then make sure that your placebo has the same properties in the your double blind experiment.

Secondly you can break things down and find out why they work. Why does mindfulness meditation stop the pain of being burnt?

Psychology as a science has many problems; in a way I think they believe too much - have too many strong ideas. I guess that is why the treatments have changed so much thru the years - and the diagnosises too - people have completely different (psychological) diseases today than a few decades ago.

Also their experiments are often underpowered or have methodological errors.

Maybe they should devote themselves to studying placebo rather than perceived actual treatments.

It would be useful to know if the pill should be red or green, the nurse brunette or blonde.

:-p