Mind Over Medicine: Can the Mind Kill or Cure?

Can the mind and body affect each other? Can something non-material and subjective work physical change? Does the personality play an active, voluntary role against the body?Ever since medicine became a science, the role of the mind in physical health has been passionately disputed. Thoday. conventional treatments rely almost entirely on drugs, yet there is growing evidence to support what healers have always believed, that our bodies "know" how to become ill and well, and that we can choose one disease over another.In this fascinating book, Robin Blake examines the phrase " it's all in the mind" and reveals the full complexity of the mind's effect on the body, whether for good or ill. He challenges the mechanistic approach of modern medicine and hows that our emotions are deeply involved in the homeostatic processes that sustain life. Along the way, he explores the variablility of pain thresholds, the intelligence of the immune system, the selectiveness of infection, the cellular civil wars of cancer and auto-allergy, and may other phenomena which have baffled science.The body, he suggests, is far more than a biological machine, and doctors and patients alike would benefit from adopting a wider, more holistic view of health. (On reverse of book)