Psychology 101

Ernest Ventura

Psychology 101

Professor Fielding

5 August 2004

Opening Question *1

What's the single most important factor for predicting lifelong good health and longevity?

It’s not eating "right."

It’s not exercise.

It’s not maintaining a "healthy" weight.

It’s not getting regular checkups.

It’s not making sure you get the right vitamins and minerals.

It’s not the purity of the air you breathe or the water you drink.

It’s not giving up smoking.

It’s not having "good" genes.

It’s not the country you live in.

It’s not access to advanced medical care.

So what is it?

It's how you think.

Brief Definition

The mind-body approach to health is based on the understanding that health comes from inside us, that our beliefs--which drive our perception, imagination, attitudes, and emotions--are the strongest influence on all aspects of well being. - Wendy Beall

Psychoneuroimmunology is the scientific field of study investigating the link between bi-directional communications among the nervous system, the endocrine (hormone) system, and the immune system and the implications of these linkages for physical health. - Jay Quinlan

History of Mind-Body Medicine *2

There has always been much controversy over the connection between the mind and the body. It’s interesting how the history affected modern medical beliefs causing the difference between eastern and western medical cultures.

Looking at the past, we can see a firm connection in their beliefs that the mind and body should be treated as a whole. Hippocrates, often referred to as the father of medicine, would caution against not including all the possibilities in healing. The belief in Chinese medicine is that certain organs of the body represent various mental and emotional conditions. Aside from that, most connections are made to nature, through energy meridian lines and hands on manipulation or acupuncture. The expert will study the person’s life and see what is going on that may cause a change in the 'balance of the organism within the environment.' Knowing what psychological situations are happening in someone's life becomes vital when deciding upon what course of treatment to follow.

In today’s western system, the doctor spends only as much time as needed to generally inquire about the ailment’s symptoms, and then prescribe a particular medicine. This system was widely influenced by the philosophies of Rene Descartes in the seventeenth century. According to Descartes, “there are two distinct and separate substances in the world: matter, which behaved in accordance to physical laws, and spirit, which was immaterial and dimensionless. *3” This belief became the philosophy of the day that the body and the spirit were totally unrelated. And so it became that the western culture adopted that pathogens were the cause of all disease. This theory was verified in the late nineteenth century by a study of a German doctor named Robert Koch who injected the disease anthrax into healthy sheep and noticed they too contracted the disease and died. This formed Koch’s theory that every disease had a simple specific cause: germs *4.

Dr. Walter Cannon, a professor physiology at Harvard University, researched the need for mental and physical balance throughout the organism. In the 1920’s, he coined the term “Homeostasis”, from the Greek homoios, which means similar and stasis, meaning position. His studies into the relationship between the effects of emotions and perceptions on the autonomic nervous system, namely the sympathetic and parasympathetic responses initiated the recognition of the 'fight or flight response *5.

Hans Selye followed Cannon’s work. Selye experimented with animals putting them under different physical and mental adverse conditions and found out that under these conditions the body adapted to heal and recover consistently. He called this the general adaptation syndrome. Selye also observed during this adaptation the thymus and other major organs of the immune system decreased. In these researches it was discovered if the stress of the environment was continued then the immune system decreased and the animal would be overwhelmed and die. These studies proved the path for the link between emotional states affecting physiological behavior and states.

Psychoneuroimunology, PNI *6

Many scientists view the immune system to be autonomous or simply self-regulatory, and that it functions separately and independently from the rest of the body. Today, these views are becoming obsolete with the increasing focus on a relatively new science of Psychoneuroimmunology or PNI.

Dr. Robert Ader, director of the division of behavioral and psychosocial medicine of University of Rochester at New York provided the name Psychoneuroimmunology in 1975. Dr. Ader believes that there’s a connection between our state of mind, our health, and our ability to heal ourselves. His belief gave birth to a study he conducted together with his colleagues, which proved the possibility of the immune system to be classically conditioned *7. The experiment involves feeding mice with saccharin while simultaneously injecting an upset-stomach-causing drug. The mice learned to avoid the saccharin by association. Additional side effect of the drug injected was it suppressed the immune system. The procedure was repeated without the drug to reverse the aversion. Dr. Ader found a high proportion of the mice formerly injected died when receiving saccharin alone.

Dr. Ader then came up with the hypothesis that the conditioning had been very successful that saccharine alone suppressed the immune system enough to kill the mice *8. It is then possible that when there is mental or physical stress on the organism, there is a corresponding connection between the two. This also indicates that if a person has a mental state of depression, this state can be interpreted by the body to produce lethargy and other corresponding ailments. On the other hand, if a body is diagnosed from a serious disease like cancer, a negative mental state may succeed. Conditioning the immune system through mental processes has made a connection in communication. Giving patients some feeling of control over their circumstances may create a positive outlook or attitude. Some believe this may vaccinate against disease and act as a valuable supplement to conventional medical care *9.

Quotations

“For this is the great error of our day that the physicians separate the soul from the body.” - Hippocrates

“A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a broken spirit saps a person's strength.” - Proverbs 17:22

Psychoneuroimmunology- “ the arrival of a good clown exercises a more beneficial influence upon the health of a town than the arrival of twenty Asses laden with drugs.” –Thomas Sydenham

“He made her melancholy, sad, and heavy; and so she died; had she being light like you of such a merry, nimble, stirring spirit, she might ha' been a grandma ere she died; and so may you, for a light heart lives long.” - William Shakespeare

References

*1 Wendy Beall. http://www.xubera.com/index.htm

*2 Jay Quinlan. http://www.infinityinst.com/articles/psychoneuroimunology.html

*3 Hafen Brent Q, Karren Keith J., Frandsen Kathryn J., Lee Smith N., "The Effects of Attitudes, Emotions, & Relationships" 23 Allyn & Bacon Massachusetts

*4 Hafen Brent Q, Karren Keith J., Frandsen Kathryn J., Lee Smith N., "The Effects of Attitudes, Emotions, & Relationships" 23 Allyn & Bacon Massachusetts

*5 Gordon James S. M.D. "Testimony to the House Appropriations Committee Chairman" November 5th 1997 3-4

*6 Jay Quinlan. http://www.infinityinst.com/articles/psychoneuroimunology.html

*7 Kiecolt-Glaser J.K. &. Glaser R. "Psychoneuroimmunology: Past, Present & Future," Health Psychology, 8(6): 1989,677-682

*8 Hall Stephen S. "A Molecular Code Links Emotions, Mind and Health," Smithsonian, June 1989

*9 Maranto Gina, "Emotions: How They Affect Your Body," Discover, November 1984, 35