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Book review: Cure mind over body - Joe Marchant
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Philosophy in action 2.5 – Book ReviewJo Marchant (2016) Cure: A Journey into the Science of Mind Over Body
Name
Student number
Work group 27 – GZW2225
Bachelor Health Sciences – Biology track
Faculty of Health, Medicine & Life Science
Maastricht University
D. Horstkötter
10-04-21
, A Journey into the Science of Mind Over Body; what is it about?
The author introduces the book with a conversation between her and a friend in the park. The
two women were discussing the effect of homeopathic remedies. The woman in the park said
that homeopathic results were 'nothing measurable'. These words made a deep impression on
the author: “I felt that she summed up one of the major philosophical battles in medicine
today” (Marchant, 2016a).
Jo Marchant is an author and journalist who explores the connection from the mind-body
connection. In the book ‘Cure: A journey into the science of mind over body’, she writes
about techniques which can improve our health like mindfulness, virtual reality and drug-free
medicines (Marchant, 2016b). The style of writing made the book easy to read. She uses
many studies to invigorate her arguments and findings of research around the world. The
subject of the book became clear as she went on to the scientists themselves.
The book is divided the book in two parts. The first part of the book focuses about the purest
example of the mind’s influence on the body, called the ‘placebo- effect’. The author has
visited many scientists who conducted a trial where the control group, who received a
placebo treatment, obtained many health benefits from this. From recovering from a back
fracture after a fake operation, disappearing autism symptoms after an endoscopy, or better
results for Parkinson patients without using medication. Marchant also explains how
hypnosis, training the immune system and hearing right words can trick the mind into
fighting diseases. These are kinds of conditional responses that are compared to Pavlov’s
theory. The stories summarize that our mind can help heal our body. The main question of the
first part is ‘Can a simple belief - that we are about to get better- have the power to heal?’
(Marchant, 2016a). And I think this sentence describes what the whole book is about.
The second part is about how meditation and biofeedback make us healthier, and physical
tricks and treatments what the mind can and cannot do. The writer visited many scientists
again who have researched the influence of treatments such as meditation on stress,
cardiovascular diseases or multiple sclerosis. But also, patients who no longer benefited from
medicines, who have started experimenting with alternative treatments. It goes deep into how
mindfulness can lower anxiety and stress: “Relaxing gets you further than stressing and
straining” (Marchant, 2016a). Studies about biofeedback also showed that cranial nerves are
linked to body responses, indicating that there is an indeed connection between mind and
body. Drugs do not always work, but maybe the connection between mind and body does.
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