Healing with Mind and Body
Posted by Ted Hopton on February 4, 2008
Is there a medical link between mind and body? A Harvard professor examines the history behind the idea in The Cure Within. I have not read the book, but based on the ideas put forth in the NYT review, “Faith and Healing,” it might be worth looking at.
In “The Cure Within,” her splendid history of mind-body medicine, Anne Harrington tries to explain why we draw connections between emotions and illness, and helps trace how today’s myriad alternative and complementary treatments came to be. A professor and chairman of the history of science department at Harvard, Harrington has produced a book that desperately needed to be written. Some 60 million Americans use these therapies in the effort to combat serious diseases like cancer and AIDS, as well as the normal physiology of aging. In the United States, office visits to providers of complementary and alternative medicine now outnumber visits to primary care physicians. The costs of such care approach $40 billion dollars a year. Books, talk shows and Web sites present riveting testimonials of clinical benefits from Eastern breathing techniques, dietary supplements, positive thinking and prayer.
