People
The Cure Within
by Anne Harrington
People suffering from serious illnesses improve their survival chances by adopting a positive attitude and refusing to believe in the worst. Stress is the great killer of modern life. Ancient Eastern mind-body techniques can bring us balance and healing. We've all heard claims like these, and many find them plausible. When it comes to disease and healing, we believe we must look beyond doctors and drugs; we must look within ourselves. Faith, relationships, and attitude matter.
But why do we believe such things? From psychoanalysis to the placebo effect to meditation, this vibrant history describes our commitments to mind-body healing as rooted in a patchwork of stories that have allowed people to make new sense of their suffering, express discontent with existing care, and rationalize new treatments and lifestyles. These stories are sometimes supported by science, sometimes quarrel with science, but are all ultimately about much more than just science.
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Contact
- Email: aharring@fas.harvard.edu
- Phone: (617) 496-5234
Classes
- HS 171: Narrative and Neurology
- HS 175: Madness and Medicine
- HS 176: Evolution and Human Nature
- HS 177: Stories Under the Skin
- HS 273: Freud and the American Academy
- HS 275: The Minded Body
- HS 278: In Search of Mind
Works
- Medicine, Mind, and the Double Brain
- The Placebo Effect
- Reenchanted Science
- The Dalai Lama at MIT
- The Cure Within
