Reflections on 'Mind as Healer, Mind as Destroyer' conference

Posted by Di Clift on 3 September 2010 | 2 Comments

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The Scientific and Medical Network held a major conference on 'the Body and Beyond: Mind as Healer, Mind as Destroyer' at Latimer Place, Buckinghamshire, last weekend. This is part of a series of cutting edge annual conferences which alternate in subject between 'Beyond the Brain' and 'the Body and Beyond'.

David Lorimer set the scene with a talk on some largely forgotten 20th century thinkers/writers/researchers who explored the power of positive thinking in affecting life and health.

David Spiegel, Professor of Psychiatry at Stanford University, USA, gave a fascinating talk on 'Hypnosis and Health', including data from brain scans showing that hypnotically induced analgesia and anaesthesia actually blocks pain at the level of perception. If however, the hypnotist instead alleviates pain by diverting the patients attention away from the pain, then the pain is perceived by the brain but without causing the conscious experience of pain. This raises very interesting questions about the power of mind over body.

Kavita Vedhara is Professor of Health Psychology at Nottingham University. She gave a talk on 'Psychoneuroimmunology: What has Stress got to do with it', in which she presented research findings showing that the observation that people under stress are more susceptible to infectious diseases is supported by biochemistry: Among elderly people, it seems that stress reduces their ability to produce antibodies in response to flu vaccination.

On Saturday afternoon we had parallel sessions presented by participants: David Beales and Helen Whitten; Sue Bayliss; Ingrid Collins; Zohar Dina Glouberman; and Marilyn Monk. I attended Marilyn's presentation on 'The Science of Imagination', touching on factors influencing control of gene expression, a fascinating area of research.

The next plenary session on 'Placebo and Nocebo Responses' was by Michel Odent who is famous for his work in obstetrics, introducing the whole concept of water births and the birthing pool. I found his talk disappointing. He has a very particular view of orthodox antenatal care which he sees as having a strong 'Nocebo' effect on pregnant women. This seemed to be based more on opinion than on evidence. Placebo/Nocebo is such an important effect, with a large body of evidence to support it, that I felt he didn't do justice to it.

Saturday evening we watched a beautifully mde film by doctor and artist Vanda Playford, showing the work of a spiritual healer, from the pre Hispanic tradition of Mexhica Pactili.

On the Sunday morning we had excellent complementary talks from two clinicians: Paul Gilbert, professor of Clinical Pyschology at the University of Derby, and Dr David Beales, a practising physician with the NHS, both of whom use mindfulness and self compassion techniques in the treatment of physical and psychological conditions. It is remarkable that more than 50% of people who see their GP have no underlying pathology!

It was an inspiring weekend and, as with all Network events, the most valuable part was meeting the other participants: some 160 of them from around the world. On the Saturday night we had a cathartic party and sing along, undoubtedly improving our health and wellbeing! The venue was excellent. We had our own separate building set in lovely gardens and with access to a swimming pool. I'm already looking forward to next year's Beyond the Brain conference which will be the same weekend.


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  • I hope it's not too late to comment on the above...
    I would like to hear more (ideally not disappointing!) talks and see more written on the Placebo/Nocebo effect in medicine and in healthcare in general.
    The definition of Health as suggested by many philosophers and by some psychologists (including some of the most notable, such as Carl Rogers) includes the ability to have a deep connection with ourselves as human beings - with full access to our own true thoughts and feelings - and a sense of connection with other people and things.
    It is most particularly at moments of crisis, as in the diagnosis of serious illness, that the nature of the relationship that the would-be healer is able to establish with his or her patient is likely to have a major effect on outcome, and by no means only in the cruder measures of compliance with medication and narrow definitions of health.
    There is now enough evidence to suggest that the ability to evoke a Placebo effect (in the widest sense) in a patient ought to be seriously considered as an important part of medical training.

    Posted by Peter Bloch, 28/01/2012 12:19pm (11 days ago)

  • Thank you for your comments Di, that was a great synopsis of the conference! As chair of the Programming Committee it is very gratifying to hear them. In our effort to bring in new speakers rather than always using the same ones, it is often difficult to predict how good their material and especially their communication will be, so I too was delighted with the caliber and presentation of our panel, even though I hear your reservations. We were also delighted with the venue, where everything worked well and from comments I heard most, if not everyone, was pleased. We managed to negotiate a good deal with the venue this year, and hope we can keep it for 2011, but that is not guaranteed. Trying to keep the balance of cost and fees is tricky and we always aim to keep costs low so as to make the conferences as accessible as possible! We are working on next year's Mystics and Scientist in April, on the theme of the nature of dreams, and Beyond the Brain in August will be on the theme of mirror neurones and the science of compassion. It will be a pleasure to see many of the people from this year's Body and Beyond, at those events!

    Posted by Claudia Nielsen, 03/09/2010 1:59pm (1 year ago)

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