Introduction
OLP
REGRESSION, REMISSION
Traditionally, placebos are tied to randomized controlled trials (RCTs) as a concealed and inert treatment (e.g., sugar pill, saline injection) to isolate the specific efficacy of a verum by controlling for therapeutic noise, such as expectancy, spontaneous remission, or regression to the mean [Recent meta-analyses found medium to large effect sizes for OLP in clinical conditions [The concept of an imaginary pill (IP) was first introduced by De Shazer in 1984 in the context of clinical hypnosis [However, apart from intervention efficacy, the promising findings on IP warrant qualitative research to include participants’ perspectives regarding the interventions’ acceptability (i.e., credibility, trust, and belief), applicability and the experience of effects of the IP. In the field of OLP research, several qualitative studies have already been conducted wherein it was found that participants have a mixed reception to the OLP treatment idea, with reactions ranging from skeptical to curious and hopeful [The aim of this embedded qualitative study was to generate initial knowledge of views and experiences toward the novel IP intervention and to compare these views with the experience of individuals who received OLPs (