> The power of theater-- of storytelling and the mind --to engage healing should form a third pillar of medicine along with Biochemistry and Surgery. Let's say

> The power of theater-- of storytelling and the mind --to engage healing should form a third pillar of medicine along with Biochemistry and Surgery. Let's say hypothetically that two patients received this 'theater treatment' - but one had an amazing actor and the other had a mediocre actor. The amazing actor convinced Patient A of the efficacy of the treatment better than Patient B. If you believe that 'theater treatment' or the placebo effect is binary then it doesn't matter how good the actors are, and therefore they will get better at the same rate. If you believe 'theater treatment' isn't binary, then the more the person believes in the treatment, the faster their condition will improve. That's what I mean by binary vs a spectrum. There's evidence that placebo treatments aren't binary - e.g. placebo injections work better than pills - http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0067485 http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal..... Therefore, with reference to my original statement 'Presumably the placebo effect is stronger when patients do not realise they are getting placebos'. In both cases, the placebo effect will work, however it will work better if the theater is more convincing - and it's more convincing when they aren't told it's sugar pills.