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I think that at this point in the discussion, I'm going to take a cue from Amelia and also address some of the issues we talked about in class that weren't related to the placebo effect.  One of the things that surprised me most about our discussion last week was my reaction to hypothetical questions about how we treat people with certain disorders.  Something about the idea of insurance companies covering multiple plastic surgeries for a person with Body Dysmorphic Disorder bothers me, while sex reassignment surgery is totally acceptable to me.  I had never considered before just how similar these situations are.  Both of these situations could be explained as cases that merit extensive psychotherapy in order to change "defective" thoughts.  They could just as easily be considered situations in which people have the right to change their physical appearance to match their mental state.  There doesn't seem to be any logic to thinking that BDD needs to be fixed "from the inside" while transgendered individuals should be allowed to get fixed in their outward appearance.  It's an interesting social construction that I'm certainly going to continue thinking about.