This roundtable will approach the ancient observation of the effectiveness of placebo in a variety of medical conditions from a multidisciplinary perspective. Current research attempting to unravel the mechanisms of the effect and the statistics of its efficacy will be discussed, as well as historical and ethical considerations.

Rob DeRubeis is the Samuel H. Preston Term Chair in the Social Sciences and Professor of Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. He has served terms as Director of Penn’s Doctoral Training Program in Clinical Psychology, and as Associate Dean for the Social Sciences in Penn’s School of Arts and Sciences. DeRubeis has authored or co-authored more than 90 articles and book chapters on topics that center on the treatment of depression. He has received the Academy of Cognitive Therapy’s Aaron T. Beck Award for his contributions to research on cognitive therapy, as well as the Aaron T. Award from the Institute for Cognitive Studies. His empirical research comparing the benefits of cognitive therapy and medications for severe depression, published in The American Journal of Psychiatry and Archives of General Psychiatry, has been the subject of media reports in The Economist, The Wall Street Journal, and USA Today. His recent article in The Journal of the American Medical Association, in which he reported that antidepressant medications confer little benefit relative to placebo in patients with mild or moderate forms of depression, has been covered in The New York Times.

Richard Kradin is a medical internist and psychoanalyst at Massachusetts General Hospital and an Associate Professor at Harvard University. He has served as Research Director for the Mind/Body Medical Institute in Boston. The recipient of the Upjohn Prize for Cancer Research and the Gradiva Prize in psychoanalysis, Dr. Kradin has authored over 200 articles in the peer reviewed literature, as well as four textbooks, including The Placebo Response and the Power of Unconscious Healing. This text addresses the complex history of the placebo response, and proposes a role for it as an innate pathway of salutogenesis within the central nervous system. It is Dr. Kradin's thesis that adopting a balanced, realistic understanding of the placebo response can promote salutary outcomes in a wide variety of therapeutic interventions.

This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council.