In “Telling the Truth About Pain”, Gligorov (2018) makes a convincing case that how an individual thinks about pain—her expectation of it, her prior experiences with it, her focus, and so on—can affect how that individual reacts to current nociceptive stimuli. Less convincing is the case Gligorov makes for using this information to justify treatment decisions in the clinical setting. In this commentary, I challenge the following two (roughly described) arguments: (1) Placebo analgesia should be used in pain management because it can benefit the patient without being deceptive or violating other moral commitments, and (2) there are conditions under which clinicians should not disclose the possibility that intense pain will result from a planned procedure because (i) nondisclosure will be good for the patient by making it less likely that intense pain will be experienced and (ii) nondisclosure would not interfere with the patient’s autonomy.
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