Mind/Body Medicine --At Last
Daniel Goleman, Joel Gurin
Summary: Presents mounting
evidence that mind-body techniques like relaxation
and hypnosis may actually affect the course of
disease. Physiological mind/body connection; Split
between mind and body in Western philosophy as
illusory; Studies as new synthesis in medical
science; Importance of controlling emotional and
mental states in staying healthy; Physiological
research; Epidemiological research; Clinical
research; Mind's role in affecting physical health.
At the University of Massachusetts Medical Center, 30
patiends with diverse medical conditions - including
heart disease, cancer, diabetes, chronic back pain,
and colitis - sit meditating with eyes closed,
focusing in utter stillness on the feeling of their
breath moving in and out of their bodies. Most who
practice this on a daily basis report relief from
many medical symptoms.
At a hospital in Cleveland, children with chronic,
intractable pain from cancer are being taught to
escape it by visualizing themselves in a relaxed,
happy place.
Such studies are producing an evergrowing body of
evidence that portends a sea change in the way
health-care professionals and patients are viewing
the role of the mind in the treatment of illness.
Relaxation, hypnosis, and other mind-body approaches
have been used in Western medicine for decades by
traditional healers. Two things are different today:
these approaches are gaining more respect and
interest from researchers in major medical
institutions; and evidence is mounting that mind-body
techniques may actually affect the course of disease
itself.
Scientists laboring to unravel the physiology of the
mind/body connection have begun to outline plausible
ways in which the mind and emotions could affect
physical health. They have deepened our understanding
of the effect of stress on the body, and are
accumulating convincing evidence that the immune
system, along with other organs and systems in the
body, can be influenced by the mind.
Taken together, these research efforts and clinical
experiments are suggesting that the split between
mind and body, long taken for granted in Western
philosophy, is illusory indeed. The studies are also
part of a new synthesis in medical science. They are
part of mind/body medicine: an approach that sees the
mind -our thoughts and emotions - as having a central
impact on the body's health.
For patients, this new synthesis has a very practical
significance. It means that by paying attention to
and exerting some control over emotional and mental
states, you may help yourself stay healthy or recover
more rapidly from being sick.
The scientific evidence for the mind's influence on
the body now comes from three converging areas of
research:
o Physiological research, which investigates
the biological and biochemical connections
between the brain and the body's systems. The key
physiological question is whether the biological
changes that stem from psychological factors
actually make a difference to health. For
example, even if stress or depression does lower
the effectiveness of the immune system, is the
drop in activity great enough to increase the
risk of illness?
o Epidemiological research, which shows
correlations between certain psychological
factors and certain illnesses in the population
at large. Some researchers are now trying to
unravel the reasons why upsetting experiences are
associated with illness and why strong social
networks are linked to better health.
o Clinical research, which tests the
effectiveness of mind/body approaches in
preventing, alleviating, or treating diseases.
For instance, support groups for patients might
work because they encourage better compliance
with what their physicians tell them to do, or
because the emotional changes the groups produce
help boost immunity directly.
Each of the findings taken from these fields of
research, examined alone, will be incomplete. Taken
together, however, the research is beginning to show
a coherent picture of mind/body medicine.
One basic tenet of mind/body medicine is that it is
best to treat the whole person. Treating emotional
distress should be an essential complement to
standard medical care. Another is that people can be
active participants in their own health care, and may
be able to prevent disease or shorten its course by
taking steps to manage their own psychological
states.
Of course, these principles must be tempered with a
realistic view of the many other factors at work in
health and illness. No one is promising that people
can cure themselves of disease just by thinking happy
thoughts. That simplistic idea ignores the
complexities of biology and the wired-in destiny of
our genes. Worse, it leaves people feeling guilty
about being sick at all. That is not the message of
mind/body medicine.
But the evidence is growing stronger that states of
mind can affect physical health. Psychological
factors affect the way people experience medical
symptoms, even when the mind does not affect the
underlying disease process. Mind/body approaches can
greatly improve the quality of life for people with
physical illnesses, especially for people with
cancer, whose primary treatments often have extremely
unpleasant side effects.
Mind/body medicine describes a variety of treatments
and approaches, ranging from meditation and
relaxation training to social support groups, that
are designed to enlist the mind in improving
emotional well-being and physical health. A growing
body of research now supports the use of these
techniques.
Although many questions remain to be answered, we
believe mind/body approaches can and should become
more widely used as a regular part of medical care,
for several reasons:
o The physical and emotional risk of using
these techniques is minimal, while the potential
benefit is high.
o The economic cost of most mind/ body approaches
is low; many can be taught by paraprofessionals
and involve no high-tech interventions.
o These techniques can and should be used along
with standard medical care. They are not
alternative measures, but can easily be applied
in the context of conventional medicine, rather
than standing in opposition to it.
More and more people are looking for medical care
that takes into account their thoughts and emotions
as well as their overt medical problems - in short,
mind/body medicine.
From Mind/Body Medicine by Daniel Goleman, Ph.D. and
Joel Gurin. Copyright (C) 1993 by Consumers Union of
United States, Inc. Yonkers, NY Reprinted with
permission.