Placebo-Like Effects of Education about Rational-Emotive Therapy

With the aid of course lectures, in-class group exercises, homework, and texts undergraduate students in abnormal psychology courses used Rational-Emotive Therapy simulations to treat problems in their own lives. The mental health of these students improved but that of untreated controls did not. The amount of improvement, in both groups, was predicted by the intensity of their pretest nonspecific emotional and social distress, but it was not a function of other variables measured. These benefits seem to be nonclinical placebo effects, side-effects of the pedagogical process, based on a combination of preexisting personal demoralization and training-initiated self-acceptance. The methods and measures used in these studies may provide a useful paradigm for studying “therapeutic” effects in natural, nonclinical situations.