• Explores response expectancy and its links to the biochemistry of hope
• Edited by the pioneer of research in the field of response expectancy
• Points to expectancy modification as the key to enhancing treatment effectiveness

How does one explain the power of placebo effects in medication and psychotherapy research? Why do people with medical illnesses who strongly anticipate getting better really do? Response expectancies, those unconscious subjective expectations about substances, processes, and social stimuli, actually effect autonomic functioning and may be the key to how we ultimately understand the biochemistry of hope.

In this ground-breaking volume, the pioneer of research in response expectancies, Irving Kirsch, brings together prominent scientists who have studied this effect in human function and dysfunction over the past decade and practitioners who have applied th