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Irving Kirsch: The Emperor's New Drugs

Mizzou Visual Productions · 12.8K views · 2014-08-15 · 1:21:55

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Overview

Psychologist Irving Kirsch gives a distinguished lecture on antidepressant trials and the placebo effect. He argues drug-placebo differences are small outside severe depression.

On Hacker News

HN points to it in discussions of antidepressant efficacy, the serotonin model and the power of placebos.

Recommended by 2 HN people across 2 months · HN mentions 2015–2019

Topics

Mental health & neurodiversityMedicine & infectious diseaseScientific method & science communication
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placeboantidepressantsdepressionclinical trialspsychology

What people said

leekyle333 · 2018-10 · Strong recommendation

If you're ever board and you want to watch something on placebos I highly recommend watching this lecture by Dr. Irving Kirsch. Placebos are pretty nuts and probably really undervalued. [VIDEO]

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q3PG23XiQKpZqpU · 2019-05 · Recommendation

Since here we are talking about placebo, I wonder if it has a meaning to say "placebo" when speaking about psychotherapy, since there is no "substance". Of course there is going to be a placebo effect as long as people think it's going to work. I think the point is that since in mild and moderate depression we have to choose between the placebo of a drug and the placebo of psychoterapy, let's choose the one with less side effects. On the topic of placebo, I found Irving Kirsch's talk about anti-depressants vs placebo in depression [1] very interesting. [1] [VIDEO]

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lingben · 2015-01 · Reference

> Stimulates the Brain to Produce Serotonin except that the serotonin model of depression has been disproven without a shadow of a doubt: [VIDEO] the device may have some effect as placebo but if that's what you're going for, there are many other cheaper alternatives

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Sources

Video by Mizzou Visual Productions, played through YouTube.

Data and selection notes

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