Is there a role for ethical woo?

As somebody with a general disdain for woo-based healing e.g., acupuncture, New Age medicine, crystals, etc., I’m troubled by the fact that there are cases where it, for lack of a better word, works.

Everybody knows the cliche, anedotal cases: my aunt / friend / collie had cancer / chronic pain / goosepimples; the doctors tried everything, but the only thing that helped was acupuncture.

I’d also wager most readers here are also aware that evidence suggests that such healing methods tend to work roughly as well as placebos.

That, however, is not insignificant: placebos can work pretty well, too.

The conundrum is that, should somebody “run out” of legitimate medical options, a doctor can’t say, “here, take this placebo. It’s just like having your chakras aligned.” It won’t work – the patient’s faith in medicine is probably shaken already, and placebos aren’t effective unless the patient “buys” in.

Is there a good option? Is there a way to harness the good placebo effects without tricking the patient or devaluing research-based medicine? Or is this too much of an edge case to bother with?

Yes, that’s fine, no decent doctor minds a bit of help from the placebo effect. The problem comes in when these so-called therapies replace proper evidence-based care rather than “complement” it. IMO the main downside is the concession to irrationality rather than the health-care implications.

Note that placebos work even when they are known by the patient to be placebos! Amazing but true.

Osteopathy has a long and BS history, but modern Doctors of Osteopathy are “real” doctors (in the US at least). So they use sometimes suspicious means to get a good end. Chiropractic (or however you’re supposed to spell that) and acupuncture can work, and it’s not ALL placebo, even if it has nothing to do with ki or chi.

Placebos don’t work as well if you tell the patient about them. They work even better if the doctor isn’t sure that the drug s/he is prescribing is an actual drug or a placebo.