Sometimes, just receiving a diagnosis can be enough to help someone start to feel better. This phenomenon has been noticed by patients and clinicians, but until now it didn’t have a name. Now, thanks to a pair of US-based researchers writing in a recent paper, it’s been dubbed the “Rumpelstiltskin effect”. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content.

In case you’re unfamiliar with the Grimm fairytale , a miller’s daughter promises her first-born child to a strange little man in exchange for the gift of being able to spin straw into gold, to save her from being executed by a tyrannical king. She later suffers buyer’s remorse when it comes to actually handing over the baby, but the man kindly offers her an out: all she has to do is

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