Placebos work because placebos don’t mean what most people think they mean. Placebo effect is any effect that can not be accounted for by the thing you are measuring, most of the time the placebo effect is just because most medical conditions get better by themselves, if you are taking crayons up the nose for your cold and you get better, is that because you where going to get better anyway or because of the crayons up the nose.
The mind over body effect, is only usefully for subjective symptoms, how you feel, pain, etc., for back pain state of mind can account for 60% of the perceived pain, this makes sense since pain is the translation of electrical signals into an emotional state. The state of mind effect has very little if any effect on objective symptoms, no matter how positive you are, you can not increase your white blood cell count by will alone.
