The Power of Belief: Psychosocial influence on illness, disability and medicine [Paperback]

The notion that beliefs can have powerful effects on our lives is thousands of years old, but is re-appearing in a new setting. Not as some New Age idea, but as a key to health and healing.

The beliefs that we have about our health are central to the way that we understand, behave and respond to medical treatment. From teaching thousands of health care professionals and members of the public around the globe, it is striking that virtually all of them have become wedded to the notion that an illness or a problem must have a single cause. The idea has been repeated in a thousand television programs, books and articles. Yet it is almost always wrong. Rarely is there just one cause for any problem. It's very interesting to hear people describe something like back pain, a headache or a marital problem. As they describe the problem they will constantly insert their beliefs about what caused it.

Many doctors become very frustrated if they are told that most medical problems cannot be reduced to a single biochemical cause. Most have been trained to believe that behind every human malady lies a faulty gene or a metabolic process deranged by intemperate behavior. But there's more to illness than that: we have to consider the psychological and social aspects of the problem, and even its meaning and purpose.

This is one of the very best books on these topics that I have read in a long time. It is a collection of essays, primarily from researchers in the United Kingdom. For a multi-authored book, the writing is remarkably uniform and there is little overlap.

The Introduction begins with two essays entitled: "Beliefs: shaping experience and understanding illness." And "Beliefs: Clinical and vocational interventions; tackling psychological determinants of illness and disability."

Part 1: "Conceptual and Psychological Perspectives," has chapters on:

The cognitive neuroscience of belief

Biased beliefs and the subjective validation effect

The cognitive anthropology of belief

Placebo: the role of expectancies in the generation and alleviation of illness

Volition and psychosocial factors in illness behavior

Belief in rehabilitation, the hidden power for change.

Part 2: "Clinical and Occupational Perspectives," includes chapters on:

Pubic and medical beliefs about mental disorders and their treatment

Beliefs and adherence to treatment: the challenge for research and clinical practice

Explaining unexplained symptoms: the role of beliefs in clinical management

Beliefs and obstacles to recovery in low back pain

Managing disability by public policy initiatives

Clinician bias in diagnosis and treatment

As you can see, the book covers a lot of ground in just over 200 pages, and every article is well referenced.

This is an important book that I hope will have an impact on clinical practice, research and policy. Though designed for clinicians, it is a book that has much that would be of interest to anyone concerned about health, wellness and recovery from illness.

Highly recommended.