Forget the Placebo Effect: It’s the ‘Care Effect’ That Matters

A quote: "What Kaptchuk demonstrated is what some medical thinkers have begun to call the “care effect” — the idea that the opportunity for patients to feel heard and cared for can improve their health."

Old wine in new bottles. This effect is well-known, much studied, and has a name: the "Hawthorne Effect":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawthorne_effect

A quote: "The central idea behind the Hawthorne effect is that changes in participants' behavior during the course of a study may be 'related only to the special social situation and social treatment they received.'"

Studies of the Hawthorne effect date back to the 1950s.

It seems that people in social psychology can't be bothered to read their own literature, and end up rediscovering what's already been discovered.