Go open - a plea for transparency in psychotherapy

The debate on the clinical, scientific as well as ethical implication of the placebo and its effects is important, but has mainly focused on placebos with a medicinal and somatic meaning, such as pharmaceutical, surgical, or so called alternative medicinal interventions. However, this perspective omits the role of placebo processes in interventions with a psychotherapeutic meaning, such as psychotherapy. Based on a theoretically derived differentiation of the placebo concept we argue that although it is difficult to prove that psychotherapy is verum, it is possible to use it as placebo and that it can best be described as either a superplacebo or a superverum. Because these conceptualizations of psychotherapy have ethical consequences, the nature of psychotherapy as anything other than a verum needs to be actively addressed by research and practice.