A lucid and stimulation explanation of how the body's natural healing mechanisms work - and how they can be triggered in non-chemical ways via the 'placebo effect'.
The placebo effect is central to the way medicine works, but is very little understood. In this book, the author shows how it works scientifically, and how thoughts and feelings work on our brain cells and affect our chemical make-up.
The heart of the author's argument is that clinical investigation has to start focusing on more than pharmacology, and that the setting aside of placebo effects is in fact unscientific. He explains how the medical profession's concentration on the chemical side ('magic bullet' pills) has led to the sidelining of the body's natural forces, and sees the study of the placebo effect as a means of efficiently bridging the gap between mainstream and alternative medicine.
