About Ted

Ted Kaptchuk is a highly respected Professor of Medicine and a leading researcher at Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. He directs the Program in Placebo Studies and Therapeutic Encounter, the world’s only multidisciplinary institute dedicated solely to studying the placebo effect. Ted began his diverse career by training as an acupuncturist and herbalist in Macao, China, where he later wrote the classic textbook, The Web That Has No Weaver: Understanding Chinese Medicine. His expertise in traditional healing eventually brought him to Harvard, where he combined this knowledge with rigorous scientific methods. His groundbreaking research has transformed the understanding of the placebo effect, demonstrating that the healing response is much more than just a trick of the mind. His studies have shown that factors like the patient-provider relationship, hope, expectation, and even the ritual of a medical encounter can trigger real, measurable biological changes in the brain and body. Ted’s team has pioneered the idea of the “open-label placebo,” proving that a placebo can still work even if the patient knows it is a sugar pill. This work, which combines clinical science, neurobiology, and ethics, promotes a whole-person approach to medicine and has earned him three separate Lifetime Achievement Awards in his field.