An attractive feature of self-regulation therapies is that, instead of doing something to the patients, they teach them to do something for them selves. Furthermore, the fact that the patient is able to do something to cope with his or her health problem can produce a significant reduction in the stress that may have contributed to that problem and in the additional stress that it produces. While the idea that the mind can playa role in the health of the body and some therapeutic techniques based on this idea are not new, remarkable scientific advances have been made recently in the area of...

Although the injunction "Know thyself" was inscribed over the site of the Delphic Oracle, the concept is of much more ancient lineage. Thousands of years ago, the wise men of the East had learned to exert authority over a broad range of bodily experiences and functions using techniques that are still taught today. But it is only in the past few decades that the West has become aware once again of the range of control that the central nervous system can maintain over sensation and body function. Medicine has moved slowly in integrating these concepts into the classic medical model of disease...

An attractive feature of self-regulation therapies is that, instead of doing something to the patients, they teach them to do something for them- selves. Furthermore, the fact that the patient is able to do something to cope with his or her health problem can produce a significant reduction in the stress that may have contributed to that problem and in the additional stress that it produces. While the idea that the mind can playa role in the health of the body and some therapeutic techniques based on this idea are not new, remarkable scientific advances have been made recently in the area of...