Emotional inteligence
322/661by a medical model that dismisses entirely the idea thatmind influences body in any consequential way.Yet there is an equally unproductive ideology in theother direction: the notion that people can cure themselvesof even the most pernicious disease simply bymaking themselves happy or thinking positive thoughts,or that they are somehow to blame for having gottensick in the first place. The result of this attitude-willcure-allrhetoric has been to create widespread confusionand misunderstanding about the extent to whichillness can be affected by the mind, and, perhaps worse,sometimes to make people feel guilty for having a disease,as though it were a sign of some moral lapse orspiritual unworthiness.The truth lies somewhere between these extremes. Bysorting through the scientific data, my aim is to clarifythe contradictions and replace the nonsense with aclearer understanding of the degree to which our emotions—andemotional intelligence—play a part in healthand disease.THE BODY'S MIND: HOW EMOTIONSMATTER FOR HEALTHIn 1974 a finding in a laboratory at the School of Medicineand Dentistry, University of Rochester, rewrotebiology's map of the body: Robert Ader, a psychologist,
323/661discovered that the immune system, like the brain,could learn. His result was a shock; the prevailing wisdomin medicine had been that only the brain and centralnervous system could respond to experience bychanging how they behaved. Ader's finding led to the investigationof what are turning out to be myriad waysthe central nervous system and the immune systemcommunicate—biological pathways that make the mind,the emotions, and the body not separate, but intimatelyentwined.In his experiment white rats had been given a medicationthat artificially suppressed the quantity of diseasefightingT cells circulating in their blood. Each time theyreceived the medication, they ate it along withsaccharin-laced water. But Ader discovered that givingthe rats the saccharin-flavored water alone, without thesuppressive medication, still resulted in a lowering ofthe T-cell count—to the point that some of the rats weregetting sick and dying. Their immune system hadlearned to suppress T cells in response to the flavoredwater. That just should not have happened, according tothe best scientific understanding at the time.The immune system is the "body's brain," as neuroscientistFrancisco Varela, at Paris's Ecole Polytechnique,puts it, defining the body's own sense of self—of whatbelongs within it and what does not. 1 Immune cells
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- Page 362 and 363: 12The Family CrucibleIt's a low-key
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322/661
by a medical model that dismisses entirely the idea that
mind influences body in any consequential way.
Yet there is an equally unproductive ideology in the
other direction: the notion that people can cure themselves
of even the most pernicious disease simply by
making themselves happy or thinking positive thoughts,
or that they are somehow to blame for having gotten
sick in the first place. The result of this attitude-willcure-all
rhetoric has been to create widespread confusion
and misunderstanding about the extent to which
illness can be affected by the mind, and, perhaps worse,
sometimes to make people feel guilty for having a disease,
as though it were a sign of some moral lapse or
spiritual unworthiness.
The truth lies somewhere between these extremes. By
sorting through the scientific data, my aim is to clarify
the contradictions and replace the nonsense with a
clearer understanding of the degree to which our emotions—and
emotional intelligence—play a part in health
and disease.
THE BODY'S MIND: HOW EMOTIONS
MATTER FOR HEALTH
In 1974 a finding in a laboratory at the School of Medicine
and Dentistry, University of Rochester, rewrote
biology's map of the body: Robert Ader, a psychologist,