The placebo effect exists and is accounted for by regulatory agencies, which require new medications to demonstrate efficacy beyond a placebo. The person-dependent nature of the placebo effect has made it challenging for practitioners trained solely in allopathic medicine—often focused on the suppression of symptoms without accounting for the uniqueness of patients—to fully grasp its significance. Advances in cognitive science have shed light on how memories are stored and how they interact with an individual’s interpretation of the world situation, effectively generating the placebo effect as a byproduct of this processing. Neuroscience further reveals how cortical maps involved in cognition interact with lower-level neural networks responsible for homeostatic regulatory loops, enabling an “idea” to produce physiological changes. In the context of optimization theory, the placebo effect can be understood as a straightforward hill-climbing strategy. Conversely, the nocebo effect is just the opposite strategy. However, both effects can be harnessed therapeutically to promote positive outcomes. Although this may seem counterintuitive regarding the nocebo effect, it can nevertheless prove valuable, particularly for patients who do not respond to a placebo.