Holistic Health.

Your state of mind can make you sick or speed your recovery from illness. This idea is hardly new but only now is it gaining respect and attention from Western doctors. The result is a variety of new medical therapies being developed for the future. This approach, called holistic medicine, is based on four general principles.

1) Your mind and body are inseparable. Therefore, not just the disease itself must be treated, but the entire you. This may entail having to change your self-image and your outlook on the future, as well as on your immediate disease.

2) You have the power to heal yourself and the power to remain well. This 'power' involves the will-power to treat your body to wholesome eating, drinking and living.

3) A positive, supportive relationship with your doctor can be more beneficial than drugs in curing diseases, particularly mental ones.

4) Emphasis should be placed on preventive medicine through better understanding of nutrition and a healthy life-style.

Dr Jerome D. Frank, Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry at the John Hopkins School of Medicine has studied the mind-health connection and documented many cases that illustrate how the mind can play the major (or sole) role in a cure. "The Medical power of faith", Human nature, August 1978, p.45 is an article by Prof Franks and gives an excellent overview of the role of drugs and the environment in mind-body healing. A slightly more technical paper, also by Prof. Frank, is "Mind-body relationship in illness and healing", Journal of the International Academy of Preventive Medicine, vol 2, no 3, 1977.