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Summary
Summary
National Geographic's riveting narrative explores the world of placebos, hypnosis, false memories, and neurology to reveal the groundbreaking science of our suggestible minds. Could the secrets to personal health lie within our own brains? Journalist Erik Vance explores the surprising ways our expectations and beliefs influence our bodily responses to pain, disease, and everyday events. Drawing on centuries of research and interviews with leading experts in the field, Vance takes us on a fascinating adventure from Harvard's research labs to a witch doctor's office in Catemaco, Mexico,to an alternative medicine school near Beijing (often called "China's Hogwarts"). Vance's firsthand dispatches will change the way you think-and feel.
Expectations, beliefs, and self-deception can actively change our bodies and minds. Vance builds a case for our "internal pharmacy"-the very real chemical reactions our brains produce when we think we are experiencing pain or healing, actual or perceived. Supporting this idea is centuries of placebo research in a range of forms, from sugar pills to shock waves; studies of alternative medicine techniques heralded and condemned in different parts of the world (think crystals and chakras); and most recently, major advances in brain mapping technology. Thanks to this technology, we're learning how we might leverage our suggestibility (or lack thereof) for personalized medicine, and Vance brings us to the front lines of such study.
Author Notes
ERIK VANCE is an award-winning science writer based in California and Mexico City. Raised as a Christian Scientist, he graduated with honors from the Christian Science school, Principia College in 1999 with a degree in biology. After working as a scientist on research projects dealing with dolphin intelligence and coastal ecology, he became an educator and then an environmental consultant. In 2005, he attended UC Santa Cruz's famed science communication program and discovered a passion for journalism. There he learned that only through compelling characters can stories touch and inspire us. Since then, he has built his career around science-based profiles of inspiring, dedicated, or controversial figures in society. His work has appeared in Harper's Magazine,TheNew York Times , The Utne Reader , Scientific American ,and National Geographic. He is also a contributing editor at Discover magazine.
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Science journalist Vance takes an inspired journey into the profound and often unnoticed powers of our brains. Perhaps the book's most constant, fascinating thread is Vance's willingness to personally investigate each topic about which he writes. Many of the studies he outlines are described through his extensive conversations with the researchers themselves. In fact, Vance's interest in the topic of suggestion began with having been seemingly healed by Christian Science as a child-an experience that becomes a recurring theme, deserving of its own standalone memoir. But the subject of the brain's malleability leads Vance through a range of topics beyond his past, including hypnosis, false memories, and the challenges of measuring the efficacy of drug treatments. Supplementing this diversely experiential approach are compelling chapters on the science of the brain, in which the emphasis is not on finding the answers but on exploring the questions. Vance also presents a "Rapid Induction Analgesia Procedure" (hypnosis) exercise, though this seems to require a guided experience beyond reading. Most of all, he offers an understanding of the ways in which beliefs can lead to a better life. Agent: Susan Lee Cohen, Riverside Literary Agency. (Nov.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
The human mind is capable of astonishing feats, but does it hold the power to alleviate pain, or even cure disease, simply through suggestibility?The placebo effect, in which an inert substance relieves symptoms simply because the patient thinks its an active pill, is among the most fascinating subjects in medicine. The importance of the placebo effect is so integral to clinical trials that no pharmaceutical study is permitted unless it compares the results of medicated subjects with those of a placebo group. In his compelling book, Discover contributing editor Vance, whose writing has appeared in Harpers, the New York Times, Scientific American, and elsewhere, chronicles his travels around the world and through history to detail the unexpected ways our lives and outlooks are affected by similar forms of suggestibility. Raised as a Christian Scientist, the author grew up in a community that believed Gods healing power alone could cure any ailment. In an enthralling anecdote, he relives his recovery from Legionnaires disease as a toddler and how the turning point of his near-death experience was his mothers abandonment of fear and trust in God. This is not to say that Vance is advocating religion in lieu of antibioticsfar from itbut in this and many other first-person narratives, he challenges traditional views on the effect of expectation, or suggestibility, on the physical body. He shows that modern neuroscience supports this line of inquiry. Brain chemistry has long been known to affect mood, regulate pain, and even affect gastrointestinal health, and cutting-edge techniques to map brain activity provide new insight. As the author frequently points out, if scientists are able to apply clinical data to the age-old mind-body problem, it may be possible to personalize medicine to an extent never before dreamed of. An eye-opening exploration of the intersection between philosophy and science and a fascinating peek into our innermost selves. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Vance was raised a Christian Scientist, believing in God's power, alone, to heal, before abandoning his faith, studying biology, and writing for such publications as Harper's, Scientific American, Slate, and Discover. Banking on humans' valuable, evolved ability to form expectations about their surroundings, placebo effects have been observed (though not always understood as such) since Plato's time. And though the FDA today requires new drugs to outperform placebos before hitting the market, a costly affair, the effects themselves have remained largely unstudied. Vance sets out to right this, as well as the idea that susceptibility to placebos is a mere weakness, by consulting the work of scientists past and present. He conducts countless interviews and puts himself in the patient's seat, enduring hypnosis, acupuncture, and even a brujo's curse, to find out what's what at this intersection of medical science and personal belief systems. Vance keeps the tone of this information-packed, impressive book conversational with jaw-dropping anecdotes and fascinating stories of real people. Mary Roach devotees just might have a new author to follow.--Bostrom, Annie Copyright 2016 Booklist
Table of Contents
Introduction: What Do You Expect? | p. 9 |
Part 1 Inside the Placebo Effect | p. 20 |
Chapter 1 Placebos, Storytelling, and the Birth of Modern Medicine | p. 23 |
Chapter 2 Meet Your Inner Pharmacist | p. 55 |
Chapter 3 Hunting the Mysterious Placebo Responder | p. 87 |
Part 2 Your Mind's Parlor Tricks | p. 112 |
Chapter 4 The Dark Side of Suggestion | p. 115 |
Chapter 5 You Are Getting Sleepy | p. 141 |
Chapter 6 Satan Worshippers, Aliens, and Other Memories of Things That Never Happened | p. 169 |
Part 3 Suggestible Us | p. 200 |
Chapter 7 Sex, Drugs, and... | p. 203 |
Chapter 8 Harnessing the Power of Expectation | p. 229 |
Appendix: Hypnotic Induction Script | p. 247 |
Acknowledgments | p. 255 |
Sources | p. 259 |
About the Author | p. 285 |