Publisher's note:
As bearer of the heavy legacy of the placebo with which it is so often equated, homeopathy continues to provoke thought and controversy. Here it prompts reflection on the 'placebo effect' inherent in any therapeutic process or double-blind experiment. By compelling observation of what makes its action specific within the organism and of what, intervening in care, involves the relationship, it opens up the field to a very particular investigation that finds astonishing answers in the remotest past.
The placebo, marked by a strongly religious connotation, and the medicine, explored here in a primary sense derived from Indo‑European and Ancient Greek, are examined from multiple angles. They force us to consider what is at stake in the bond woven between the person invested with the role of caregiver and the one seeking help. Contemporary approaches characterised by a degree of standardisation of care, individual approaches such as homeopathy and psychoanalysis, and those more strongly shaped by cultural traditions are analysed here in an attempt to better delineate the 'placebo effect' in its components and its unsuspected impacts.
A psychiatrist and homeopath, Geneviève Ziegel practises in Montpellier and has written various works, notably:
Du stress au transgénérationnel.
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