This Book May Cause Side Effects with Helen Pilcher

Why Thinking You're Ill Can Actually Make You Ill

Helen Pilcher trained as a neuroscientist before she trained as a stand-up comedian, and both disciplines are doing the work in this hour at Shipston Methodist Church. She calls herself a "recovering neuroscientist" these days, but the PhD in cell biology still shows in how she builds an argument; she just delivers it like someone who has spent years timing a joke on stage.

Her subject is the nocebo effect, the placebo response's less famous and more troublesome twin. A sugar pill can make you feel better because you expect it to. This book asks what happens when your mind convinces your body something is wrong and produces the pain, nausea, paralysis or even blindness to prove it. Pilcher works through cases from Havana Syndrome to the illnesses that spread through social media faster than any virus could, then turns to what it means for how medicine actually treats people. She's also the author of Life Changing, named Science Book of the Year by The Times and shortlisted for the Wainwright Prize, so this is argument built on research rather than guesswork.

Expect the kind of hour that changes how you read your own symptoms on the walk home.

Saturday 26 September 2026 · Shipston Methodist Church, 50 New Street, Shipston-on-Stour, Warwickshire CV36 4EN · Starts 1:30pm