The philosophical origins of mental health: from mind-cure to public policy

“ I pass now to the consideration of the fourth class of the causes of the uncertainty of medicine—mental influences.
It never should be forgotten in our observation of disease, that we have not to deal with the body alone, but with the body inhabited by a mind, which is connected with every particle of that body by countless nervous filaments, and therefore acting through them upon it, and affecting to a greater or less degree all its diseased conditions. ”

“ CHAPTER XIX MENTAL INFLUENCE IN DISEASE, OR HOW THE MIND AFFECTS THE BODY
One of the dearest delusions of man through all the ages has been that his body is under the control of his mind. Even if he didn't quite believe it in his heart of hearts, he has always wanted to. The reason is obvious. The one thing that he felt absolutely sure he could control was his own mind. If he couldn't control that, what could he control? Ergo, if man could control his mind and his mind could control his body, man is master of his fate. ”

“ The moon was by some supposed to have a deleterious effect on the intellect; insane persons were spoken of as ‘moonstruck’; the periodicity of the mental attacks was also supposed to have some relation to the lunar interval. Indeed, the whole subject of insanity bristles with occult and mysterious theories. The really hopeful treatment of insanity began when it—a mental disease—was treated, not by mental, but by physical methods, and the more mental and physical are taken together as one and the same, the more rational and productive of good, in the best sense, is our treatment likely to be. ”

“ Ignorance is the greatest foe to metaphysical science.
Never converse on sickness, watch its symptoms, recommend matter remedies, or seek to learn its cause in matter; and you will find it easier for mind to destroy, and to enjoy health yourself, and help others to do so. The basis of all disease, is error or belief; destroy the belief and the sick will recover. To be cheerful in sickness is well, to be hopeful is better, but to understand the nothingness of disease destroys it utterly. ”

“ In the region of the mind also he has investigated many phenomena; he is able to attribute many insane states to toxic influences; he has studied to some extent diseases known as ‘functional’—a class that is becoming numerically less with the advance of knowledge; but he is not able to grasp to the same extent the meaning of the word ‘Spirit.’ The medical man recognises in many cases the influence of the temperament or character of the patient upon the course of the disease, and would prefer to treat one who takes a hopeful view of the future ”

“ The belief that the unconscious substratum of mortal mind, termed the body, or matter, suffers and reports disease independent of conscious mind, is the error that prevents mortal mind governing its own body understandingly, and knowing how to do it with better results. Nothing can interfere with the harmony of being or stop the existence of man. He is the same after as before a bone was broken or a head chopped off; for man is perfect and immortal, and the mortal and imperfect, that we call man, is but a poor counterfeit to be laid aside for the pure coin. ”

“ Understanding the control of Mind over body, we should put no faith in material means.
Science not only reveals the origin of all disease as wholly mental, but it also declares that all disease is Mind as the healer. cured by Mind. There can be no healing except by Mind, however much we trust the drug, or any other means toward which human faith is directed. It is Mind, not matter, which brings to the sick whatever good they may seem to receive from drugs. The sick are never really healed, except by means of divine power. It is only the action of Truth that can restore harmony. ”

“ We name this merely to explain the mental, instead of physical origin of disease, therefore, that rules of health, taking strong hold of the belief of the patient, beget and foster disease, by keeping mind on this subject, fearing and trying to avoid sickness. The faith reposed in drugs had better remain in one's self; understanding the control mind holds over the body, we should have no faith in matter. Science reveals the origin of disease wholly mental and not physical, also that it is cured through mind and not matter. ”

“ Faith is all that ever made a drug remedy the ailments of a man. Mortal mind is belief, the immortal is understanding, the latter is Spirit, the former personal sense; we must learn to hold immortal and mortal mind or belief separate. The cause and cure of disease is solely mental, and to understand this renders mind less productive of disease, and able to destroy it. Matter has neither action nor sensation of its own; mind moves the body, and feels for it. We cannot retain the old positions diametrically opposite to metaphysical science, and conquer disease with mind. ”

“ If the mind may be helped through blessing received by the spirit, why not the body also? We are realising more and more forcibly every year how intimate is the connexion between mental action and the physical organism. The two are so linked that every change in the one would seem to be accompanied by a change in the other. Moreover, we are assured by recent psychology that there are regions within us which lie outside—above and below—the levels of our ordinary consciousness ”

“ The British Medical Journal of June 18, 1910, has published a series of papers by men ‘who could speak with the highest authority on the relations between mind and body, as exhibited in the phenomena of disease.’ ‘Their opinion,’ as the Journal tells us, ‘serves as an authoritative reminder that there are bodily ills which cannot be cured by pills and potions, but which yield to methods which, for want of a better word, may be called “mental” ”

“ All around us spiritual or mental healing is going on. It is our duty, as it is our interest, to study the process scientifically, to define its limitations both in regard to the conditions to which it is applicable and to the persons who can successfully apply it, and to recognise perhaps more fully than before that man is a compound of body and spirit, both of which have to be taken into account by those who undertake the treatment of disease. ”

“ No one who has been connected with one of our big general hospitals can doubt for a moment the advisability of the collaboration of the physician and the clergyman, each helping the patient from his own standpoint. It must not be imagined that I advocate any usurping of the duties of one by the other, but in the cure of certain types of disease,44 and certainly in the cure of diseases that are primarily diseases of mind or character, the doctor should welcome the minister of religion as a valuable ally. ”

“ Science is the only sure basis of harmony. Material sense contradicts Science, for matter takes no cognizance of the spiritual facts of the universe, or of man and God. Science declares that there is but one Truth, Life, Love, but one Spirit, Mind, Soul. Any attempt to divide these arises from the fallibility of sense, from mortal man’s ignorance, from his hatred of God and Divine Science.
Sickness is a belief, a latent fear, made manifest on the body in different forms of fear, or disease. ”

“ Man is by no means a material germ, starting from the imperfect to reach above its origin to God; for the stream rises no higher than its fount. Man is neither young nor old, he has neither birth nor death; he is not an animal, vegetable, or migrating mind, passing from the immortal to the mortal, from good to evil and from evil up to good; such admissions leap headlong into darkness and dogma. Shakespeare's description of infancy and age is a startling picture of helplessness and non-intelligence instead of Mind. ”

“ Mind must be found superior to all the beliefs of the
493:18 five corporeal senses, and able to destroy all ills. Sick-
ness is a belief, which must be annihilated by
the divine Mind. Disease is an experience of
493:21 so-called mortal mind. It is fear made manifest on the
body. Christian Science takes away this physical sense
of discord, just as it removes any other sense of moral or
493:24 mental inharmony. That man is material, and that mat-
ter suffers, - these propositions can only seem real and
natural in illusion. Any sense of soul in matter is not the
493:27 reality of being. ”

“ Had a scientist attempted to calm the grief of your supposed bereavement before the second news arrived, whereby you learned the sufferings were produced by error and not Truth, would you have thanked your comforter, though she gave you relief, until this fact was made plain to your understanding. The body or matter never yet informed man of disease; a belief carries the telegram to the body, and the body manifests only the sufferings of mind. ”

“ Sickness as discord
Is the sick man sinful above all others? No! but
so far as he is discordant, he is not the image of God.
318:18 Weary of their material beliefs, from which
comes so much suffering, invalids grow more
spiritual, as the error - or belief that life is in matter -
318:21 yields to the reality of spiritual Life.
The Science of Mind denies the error of sensation in
matter, and heals with Truth. Medical science treats
318:24 disease as though disease were real, therefore right, and
attempts to heal it with matter. If disease is right it is
wrong to heal it. ”

“ In other words, How can I heal the body, without beginning with the mind that controls it? When disease is once destroyed in mind, its fear is gone, and therefore it is thoroughly cured. Men obtain harmony only as they forsake discord, acknowledge the supremacy of Mind, and abandon their material beliefs. Mortal belief is “the strong man,” that must be held in subjection before its influence upon health and morals can be touched. ”

“ Disease is a thing of thought manifested on the body; and fear is the procurator of the thought which causes sickness and suffering. Remove this fear by the true sense that God is Love,—and that Love punishes nothing but sin,—and the patient can then look up to the loving God, and know that He afflicteth not willingly the children of men, who are punished because of disobedience to His spiritual law. His law of Truth, when obeyed, removes every erroneous physical and mental state. The belief that matter can master Mind, and make you ill, is an error which Truth will destroy. ”

“ Show them how mortal mind seems to induce disease by certain fears and false conclusions, and how divine Mind can cure by opposite thoughts. Give your patients an underlying understanding to support them and to shield them from the baneful effects of their own conclusions. Show them that the conquest over sickness, as well as over sin, depends on mentally destroying all belief in material pleasure or pain.
Stick to the truth of being in contradistinction to the error that life, substance, or intelligence can be in matter. ”

“ If the case to be treated is a consumption, begin your argument by taking up the leading points that this disease includes, according to belief, showing it is not inherited, that inflammation, tubercles, hemorrhage, and decomposition are but thoughts, beliefs, mental images before mortal minds, not the immortal Mind; hence they are not the Truth of man, and should be treated as error, put out of mind, and then they will disappear from the body. ”

“ Tumors, ulcers, tubercles, inflammation, pain, deformed backs, are all dream-shadows, dark images of mortal thought that will flee before the light.
If from any cause your patient suffers a relapse, meet the cause mentally and courageously, knowing that there can be no reaction in Truth. If error reacts, this reaction arises from either fear or sin. Disease has no intelligence to move itself about, or to change itself from one form to another.
Mind produces all action. If the action proceeds from Truth, from immortal Mind, there is harmony; but mortal mind is liable to any phase of belief. ”

“ Man is not sick; for mind is not sick and matter cannot be. A belief is all that mortals or mortality include. A belief is the tempter and tried, the sin and sinner, the disease and its cause, death and the dying. Thinking of sin and death is not the method of destroying them. It is well to be cheerful in sickness; to be hopeful is better: but to understand there is no sickness except to belief is the universal and entire remedy. We admit that one mortal mind can influence another, and thereby affect the body, but never calculate we are governing our own body with mind. ”

“ Physicians generally deport themselves as if Mind were non-existent; and they may even take the ground, contrary to metaphysics, that all is matter, not Mind. Ignorant that the human mind governs the body, through belief, the invalid may unwittingly add more fear to the reservoir already overflowing with that emotion.
Doctors should not implant disease in the thoughts of their patients, as they so frequently do, by declaring Wrong and right way. it a fixed fact, even before they go to work to eradicate the disease, through the material faith which they inspire. ”

“ Ignorant of the fact that mental belief produces disease, and all its symptoms, the ordinary physician goes on establishing disease with his own mind. Then he addresses himself to the work of destroying it by the power of matter. When we remove disease by addressing the mind, and giving no heed to the body, we prove that mortal mind creates the suffering. ”

“ One should never hold in mind the image of disease, but efface all its forms and types in thought, both for one's own sake, and for the patient's.
It is mental quackery to make disease a reality, hold it as something seen and felt, and then to attempt its cure through Mind. It is no less erroneous to believe in the real existence of a tumor, a cancer, or decayed lungs, while you argue against their reality, than it is for your patient to feel these ills in physical belief. Such practice fastens disease on the patient, and it will reappear in some other more alarming form. ”

“ Most forms, or stages of disease that the body manifests, is remedied on this scientific mental basis; we have tested this in too many instances to doubt it. When medicine is taken and the sick recover, faith and not the medicine, has done this, whereas the almost universal belief is that medicine, or laws of health heal the sick ”

“ Prominent among physical phenomena is the mutual relation between the brain and the organs of nutrition. Mental exertion should be avoided for at least one hour after a hearty meal, and all mental labor which requires concentration of thought ought to be accomplished in the earlier portion of the day, when the brain is refreshed and repaired by the night's repose. Mental, like physical endurance, is modified by age, health and development. A person accustomed to concentration of thought, can endure a longer mental strain than one inured to manual labor only. ”

“ To remedy conditions of mental stress by correcting the underpay, overwork, bad ventilation, or underfeeding on account of illness or death of the wage-earner of the family, is, of course, nothing but the most admirable common sense; but to call it the mental treatment of disease is a mere juggling with words. "Take care of the body and the mind will take care of itself," is a maxim which will prove valid in actual practice nine times out of ten. ”

“ The man who does not take the time for recreation and above all who does not know how to recreate is almost inevitably drifting toward a premature aging of tissues, or often is laying the foundation for an acute breakdown in health. Recreation is an absolute need of humanity, adding to health, strength, efficiency, length of life, and power of accomplishment. Instead of being a waste of time, it is a time saver and above all a saver of suffering, mental and physical, as the years roll on. ”

“ The physical organism is not constructed to run its full cycle of years and labor under a heavier burden than this. Physical and mental exercise is conducive to health and longevity, if not carried too far. It is erroneous to suppose that excessive physical exertion promotes health. Man was never intended to be a running or a jumping machine. In mental work, variety should be introduced. New work calls into play fresh portions of the brain, and secures repose for those parts which have become exhausted. Idleness should be avoided by all. ”

“ No man can remain idle without shrinking, shrivelling, constantly becoming a less efficient man; for he can keep up only those faculties and powers which he constantly employs, and there is no other possible way. Nature puts her ban of deterioration and loss of power upon idleness. We see these victims everywhere shorn of power—weak, nerveless, backboneless, staminaless, gritless people, without forcefulness, mere nonentities because they have ceased working. Without work mental health is impossible and without health the fullest happiness is impossible. ”

“ Every one will agree that good ventilation is necessary in a hospital, because people cannot get well without fresh air. Do they not see that by the same reasoning good ventilation is necessary everywhere, because people cannot remain well without fresh air? Let me entreat those who employ women in work-rooms, if they have no time to read through such books as Dr. Andrew Combe’s ‘Physiology applied to Health and Education,’ and Madame de Wahl’s ‘Practical Hints on the Moral, Mental, and Physical Training of Girls,’ to procure certain tracts published by Messrs. ”

“ Brain Workers.—The brain workers are usually men of sedentary habits. To no class is exercise so important. Without it, some part of the human machinery is almost certain to get out of order. It may be the stomach or lungs, the liver or kidneys, the head, or eyes, or throat. There is a lack of perfect action of one or more of the parts, [136] a clogging of the organs of digestion, or circulation, or respiration. This physical clogging at once affects the mental work, dulling the thinking powers, and often rendering their efforts futile, and making the complete cessation of labor necessary. ”

“ Is epilepsy a functional neurosis or an organic disease? Analogy suggests organic changes. No such changes have been constantly demonstrated by post mortem evidence; partly, of course, because post mortem examinations of cases of death in the epileptic or epileptiform condition have been extremely rare, and are not very common in cases where there is a well-authenticated history of attacks; but partly because our investigations into the minute anatomy of many morbid conditions are at present barred by the limitations of microscopic vision. ”

“ The dangers of a belief in, and of practising consciously, Spiritual Healing are great, as far as doctors are concerned. It simply puts a premium on ignorance and laziness, and is disastrous to exact knowledge and scientific investigation. Spiritual healers assert that to dwell on the abnormal and pathological prevents their work on the normal. But who is to say what is the normal, till abnormalities97 have been weighed and considered? No, to people like myself who practise medicine, it is a dangerous and uncertain weapon to employ. ”

“ I very much question whether there is more than one system, and I am convinced that physical and mental are one and the same. And I would go so far as to say, that the disastrous mistakes that have been made in the past, and which are still in operation to-day in the treatment of one large section of sick people, viz. the insane, largely owe their origin to this arbitrary division. And, by a curious irony, the branch of medical science where there is the most marked predominance of materialism86 is this very department of mental diseases. ”

“ The idea of mental influence in disease was82 first scientifically formulated about twenty-five years ago, and was provided with one of those queer names which we now use more or less glibly, with a sort of comforting feeling that we understand the subject, when we have successfully mastered the spelling and pronunciation—the scientific name psychotherapeutics, or, in plain English, mind cure. ”

“ The ritual of the cure is well known, and has been beautifully described by Pater in Marius the Epicurean. . . . The popular shrines of the Catholic Church to-day are in some ways the direct descendants of this Æsculapian cult, and the cures and votive offerings at Lourdes and Ste. Anne are in every way analogous to those of Epidaurus.’
Osler goes on to speak with much tenderness of the apparently ineradicable nature of the credulity evinced not merely by the multitude but by persons educated widely, if not well, in the matter of the healing of disease. It is indeed a portentous fact. ”

“ Medicine and religion had a common origin23 in pagan temples, and we have already seen that in medieval times all such learning was the monopoly of the monks. Healing by means of influence on the mind of the patient is no newer a branch of the art than surgery or treatment by drugs. History abounds with instances of cures effected at shrines by means of relics, and by saints. Of all modern pilgrimage shrines the one in the Pyrenees is by far the most famous. That cures actually take place at the Grotto of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception at Lourdes is undeniable. ”

“ In all ages and in all climes the prayer of faith has saved a certain number of the sick. The essentials are, first, a strong and hopeful belief in a dominant personality, which has varied naturally in different countries and in different ages: Buddha in India and in Japan, where there are cults to match every recent vagary; Æsculapius in ancient Greece and Rome; our Saviour and a host of Saints in Christian communities; and, lastly, an ordinary doctor has served the purpose of common necessity very well. ”

“ As we have often said, the wise physician understands the action of the mind or the spirit on the body, and uses it for the benefit of his patient. A man who firmly131 believes in his doctor’s skill, or in the efficacy of the treatment to which he is subjected, is in the best possible condition for the operation of curative forces. On the other hand, a patient who believes that nothing can cure him helps to seal his own doom. ”

“ There can be no doubt that cures of certain kinds of diseases have been effected by Christian Science and kindred faith-healing cults, all of which cures come under the head of healing by suggestion. I do not think that healing disease by suggestion is specially a Christian work, it can be achieved in many ways. But I think the average medical man likely to be more willing to seek the aid of a duly accredited minister of religion than a so-called ‘Spiritual Healer’ who is subject to no authority. ”

“ It is as old as medicine and religion, which in the beginning were one, as they still are among many savage tribes. Faith can move mountains, and it matters little on what it is based or how it is excited. As John Hunter has told us, the touch of a dead man’s hand has charmed away a tumour. But there are limits to its action, and while willing to accept faith as an adjuvant, no one who knows anything about disease will admit that by itself it can heal any but ailments the origin of which lies hid in the unknown recesses of the nervous system. ”

“ But above and beyond all this45 I think the quieting and encouraging influences of religion are of the greatest value in all illness, and I believe a greater use might be made of such power.
Sydney Holland.
The Surgeon, the Clergyman, and the Patient
Possibly the gravest shock that a human being may receive, so far as it concerns himself or herself, is to be told that fatal disease is present in the system. So great may be the actual shock that many a medical practitioner shrinks from inflicting it, and purposely avoids direct allusion to the certainty of dissolution. ”

“ We must have no quarter with the damnable heresy that denies to sin and suffering and disease a reality that it concedes to food and to fees: and we can have no truce with the hard materialism that will acknowledge the truth of nothing that is241 not revealed to the scalpel or the test-tube. We may be thankful to-day that so many of our leading physicians are becoming more and more willing to admit the reality of prayer and the rights of the priest; we must take care that no headstrong divines, in their new zeal for psychic healing, disparage or despise the profession of St. ”

“ Religious excitement is not infrequently assigned as a cause of insanity. The writer has stated elsewhere his belief that the philosophy of the infinite, far from being a source of aberrations of thought which may be deemed insane, is the ultimate point of our mental evolution, and that a true and philosophical religion raises the mind above a mere incidental emotionalism and gives stability. With no religion and no moral obligation the organism110 is apt to become a prey to the lusts of the flesh and their consequences. ”

“ Gasquet observes that religion may either produce or tend to hinder unsoundness of mind; that it may cause certain symptoms of insanity or modify them; and, lastly, that it may be employed as a means of moral prevention and treatment. He believes that every form of religion, however widely it may differ from our standard of the truth, if it enforces the precepts of morality, is a source of strength to the sound mind that sincerely accepts it. ”

“ We must do all we can to intervene in the lives of young people who are mentally or emotionally unstable before they cause harm to themselves or to others. I am pleased that some schools have responded to the recent youth violence tragedies by improving mental health services, expanding after-school and mentoring programs, and offering in-home counseling for vulnerable families. To ensure the success of these efforts, we must work to fight the stigma and dispel the myths that surround mental illness. ”

“ A natural person enjoys the right to life. A natural persons’ life safety and dignity are protected by law and free from infringement by any organization or individual. Article 1003
A natural person enjoys the right to corporeal integrity. A natural persons’ corporeal integrity and freedom of movement are protected by law and free from infringement by any organization or individual. Article 1004
A natural person enjoys the right to health. A natural persons’ physical and mental health are protected by law and free from infringement by any organization or individual. ”

“ A society-wide service system for mental health will be improved to alleviate academic, professional, emotional and life pressure, as well as other social pressure, and provide post-traumatic care and better diagnosis reporting and follow-up management for people with severe mental disorders. ”

“ An adequate staff of physicians, investigators and trained workers [109] in every department should provide as high a standard of efficiency as that of the best general and special hospitals, or that in any field of medical science. Ample facilities should be available for the treatment of mental and nervous conditions, the clinical study of patients on the wards, and scientific investigation in well-equipped laboratories, with a view to prevention and cure of mental disease and addition to the knowledge of insanity and associated problems. ”

“ Mental and physical pain is part of the evil in the world. It makes a great difference, however—it may be all the difference between sickness and health—whether we allow trouble to break down our self-control and weaken our will, or whether we face it boldly with a supreme serenity of spirit, strong in a knowledge of greater things. ”