Mind-Body Medicine

Historically, North American doctors saw the mind and body as separate entities when related to illnesses and their cures. In fact, once bacterial infections, penicillin and the antibiotic cure were discovered, it basically proved to medical experts that the mind had no control over an illness or disease caused by external forces. Although mind-body medicine had been practiced for thousands of years elsewhere in the world, the concept really was not awarded any merit or credibility in the US and Canada until as recently as the 1960s. And then a new field of study was examined and it was called Psychoneuroimmunology.

The definition of the word “psychoneuroimmunology” comes in three parts:

• psycho meaning psychology
• neuro meaning neurology or nervous system
• immunology meaning immunity

Theoretically, it is the study that states the mind and the immune system are connected and that negative emotions can actually harm the body. A modern example is the fact that stress can deteriorate the body's natural immune system, thus making an individual sick or sicker than normal. While no longer simply a theory, it is generally accepted that a human being's immunity is decreased by stress or depression. Indeed, without the dedicated works of three famed doctors, psychoneuroimmunology would not now have the recognition it deserves in medical circles.

In 1964, Dr. George Freeman Solomon, Stanford graduate and one of the pioneers of psychoneuroimmunology felt that there was a direct correlation between mind and body. By studying patients with rheumatoid arthritis, he found that those individuals who experienced bouts of depression actually suffered more painful symptoms of the arthritis. Their emotions directly impacted the inflammation. According to Dr. Solomon's 2001 obituary in the New York Times, he was quoted previously in a 1983 interview as saying, “Mind and body are inseparable.. The brain influences all sorts of physiological processes that were once thought not to be centrally regulated”.

Another noted physician who advanced the theory of mind-body medicine is Dr. Herbert Benson. Presently the Director Emeritus of the Benson-Henry Institute (BHI), and Mind/Body Medical Institute Associate Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, in the early 1970s he studied the effect of meditation on blood pressure. He was the first to use the phrase “relaxation response” writing many books on the subject. According to his biography, he was “one of the first Western physicians to bring spirituality and healing into medicine...His work serves as a bridge between medicine and religion, East and West, mind and body, and belief and science”.

Dr. Robert Ader, in whose honor the Psychoneuroimmunology Research Society confers a highly coveted award called the Robert Ader New Investigator Award to a new scientist who has made contributions to the study of psychoneuroimmunology, is another groundbreaking doctor who felt that “the immune system is integrated with other psychophysiological processes and is therefore influenced by and capable of influencing the brain”. His works began in the 1970s with studies on rats.

Today, this field of study has become a hot topic, as many people look for alternative forms of medicine. And while it is now accepted that mind-body medicine is indeed beneficial, it is equally agreed by doctors that there is a huge tendency to make this field the “newest fad”, a commercial endeavor as opposed to a healing process. Serious doctors are wary of quacks and scams that will actually harm advancements in psychoneuroimmunology rather than focus on real scientific methods.