True Blood and the Placebo Effect

1. True Blood and
the Placebo Effect

2. Psychological
Basis

3. Physiological Basis
● Placebo- A treatment/drug/stimuli that the user believes to be
beneficial, yet has little to no medical usage.
● Placebo Effect- The phenomenon that occurs when the patient
believes that the treatment is working, regardless if the
treatment is viable or not.

4. Media

5. True Blood
Tara Thornton Lettie Mae Daniels Miss Jeanette

6. Media
● Lettie Mae Daniels is the alcoholic
mother of Tara Thornton.
● Miss Jeanette is a “voodoo
priestess” who was hired to
perform an exorcism on Daniels.

7. Media
● Tara Thornton and her mother
Lettie Mae Daniels have had a
strained relationship for most of Tara’s life.
● Lettie Mae has been consistently drunk and/or high, resulting
in her emotionally and physically abusing Tara for most of her
childhood.
● Tara continues to look after her mother because she believes
that it is her duty as a daughter to help her fight her addiction.

8. Connection/Validity

9. Connection
● Lettie Mae Daniels does not
believe that she has an addiction,
instead that she is possessed by
a demon who is making her
destroy her life.
● Daniels hires Miss Jeanette to perform an
exorcism, in hopes that she will rid the demon from her. She
makes Tara pay for the exorcism.

10. Connection
● Miss Jeanette performs the exorcism on
Daniels, which includes her drinking a
strange substance, her hallucinating,
and her “seeing” the demon leave her
body.
● After the exorcism, Daniels believes she
is truly “cured”. She stops drinking and works to improve her relationship with
Tara.
● Later, Miss Jeanette confesses to Tara that she has no power, and the
hallucinations comes from drinking an herbal mixture of peyote. The healing
comes because people believed she healed them

11. Validity
● Lettie Mae told her daughter Tara multiple times that the
exorcism was her last option, and that if she didn’t have it
done, she would die.
○ Daniels went into the ritual already expecting and believing that it would
work, and that she had no other options.
○ Professor Ted Kaptchuk at a Harvard affiliate quotes,"The placebo effect is
more than positive thinking — believing a treatment or procedure will
work. It's about creating a stronger connection between the brain and
body and how they work together.”
■ Lettie Mae was so convinced that the exorcism was going to work,
she did not include any other options.
■ Belief held in the result valid

12. Validity
● Although Lettie Mae believed that she was “cured”, she still
experienced symptoms of withdrawal, and almost relapsed
throughout the season.
○ After the exorcism, Lettie Mae was sick for some time, the sickness could
be attributed to both substance withdrawal and her drinking the
hallucinogenic mixture
○ Although the Placebo Effect is powerful, the patient is not really healed.
Their belief of their healing is so strong, it just masks the symptoms.
○ Even though Lettie Mae believed that as soon as the “demon” left her, she
was cured, her body still went through the same medical symptoms of
someone getting clean.
○ Medically still having the disease valid

13. Validity
● Miss Jeanette confessed to Tara that she was a fraud, and that
she had no real power and was only it it for the money.
○ The confession makes the Placebo Effect all the more
evident.
○ The viewer knows for a fact that Miss Jeanette didn’t
actually do anything for Lettie Mae Daniels, and that the
healing that Daniels felt must be coming from her belief
that she was going to be healed in the first place.
○ A confession that the treatment was fake in the first place,
and that people’s belief is what caused them to get better
valid

14. Works Cited
Harvard Health Publishing. “The Power of the Placebo Effect - Harvard Health.” Harvard Health Blog,
www.health.harvard.edu/mental-health/the-power-of-the-placebo-effect.
“Lettie Mae Daniels.” True Blood Wiki, trueblood.wikia.com/wiki/Lettie_Mae_Daniels
“What Is the Placebo Effect?” WebMD, WebMD, www.webmd.com/pain-management/what-is-the-placebo-effect.