Mind-Body-Relationship!

The Mind-Body Relationship: A Brief History....

The ancient Greeks were among the earliest to identify the role of bodily factors in health and illness. Rather than ascribing illnesses to evil spirits, they developed the humoral theory of illness (Sarafino, 2011).  According to their viewpoint, Sarafino (2011) explained that disease resulted when the four humors of circulating fluids of the body - blood, black bile, yellow bile, and phlegm - were out of balance. The goal of treatment was to restore the balance among the humors. 

By the Middle Ages, however, the pendulum had swung back toward supernatural explanations for illnesses. Sarafino (2011) described diseases was regarded as God's punishment for evil doing, and cure often consisted of driving out the evil forces by torturing the body. Later, this form of "therapy" was replaced by penance through prayer (Sarafino, 2011).

Beginning in the Renaissance and continuing into the present day, great strides have been made in understanding the bases of medicine. These advances noted by Caltabiano (2008) included the invention of the microscope in the 1600s and the development of the science of autopsy, which allowed medical practitioners to see the organs that were implicated in different diseases. 

As the science of cellular pathology progressed, the humoral theory of illness was finally put to rest. As a result of scientific advances, Caltabiano (2008) reported medical practices drew increasingly on laboratory findings and looked to bodily factors rather than to the mind as the bases for health and illness. 

In an effort to break with the superstitions of the past, Caltabiano (2008) conveyed that practitioners resisted acknowledging any role of the mind in disease processes. Instead, they focused primarily on organic and cellular pathology as a basis for the diagnoses and treatment recommendations (Caltabiano, 2008).

 

 This woodcut from the 1570s depicts a sophisticated, though not always successful, techniques for the treatment of illness

surgeon drilling a hole in a patient’s skull, with the patient’s family and pets looking on..

References: 

Caltabiano, M. L. (2008). Health psychology: Biopsychosocial Interactions, 2nd edition. 

Sarafino, E. P. (2011). Health psychology, International Student Version, 7th edition.