Placebo effects are most often considered in the context of randomized controlled trials, in which an active drug or treatment is compared against an inert placebo treatment. This allows the factors that contribute to placebo effects to be separated from the medically active properties of a drug or treatment. But in the practice of medicine, these factors can never be separated out and the forces that produce placebo effects are part of the treatment itself. Any benefit comes from the combination of the placebo effect and the active properties of the medication. What are the factors that produce placebo effects, and can they be harnessed to improve healthcare? In this talk, Kari Leibowitz will draw on her research in the Stanford Mind & Body Lab to shed light on the psychological and social factors that produce placebo effects and discuss cutting-edge research that aims to understand how we can more effectively leverage these factors in healthcare. She will share her research on how an understanding of placebo effects can be used to deliberately shape mindsets in healthcare to reduce side effects and improve outcomes of treatment.
Kari Leibowitz is a 4th year PhD student in the Stanford Mind & Body Lab in the Department of Psychology and a Stanford Interdisciplinary Graduate Fellow. Her research investigates the influence of mindsets - thoughts, beliefs, and expectations - on individual health and the healthcare system. Through an understanding of placebo effects, her work seeks to understand and leverage mindsets to improve the patient-provider relationship, health outcomes of treatment, and the healthcare experience.
Kari received her BA in Psychology and Religion from Emory University, after which she served as the Program Coordinator for the Emory-Tibet Partnership for two years. In this role, Kari organized the 2013 visit of the Dalai Lama to Emory, and served as the Program Assistant for the Tibetan Mind/Body Sciences program in India. From 2014-2015, Kari served as a U.S.-Norway Fulbright scholar, during which time she lived in Tromsø, Norway, north of the Arctic Circle, and studied mindsets about winter. Kari’s writing has appeared in The Atlantic and The New York Times.
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16 сен 2024
