Claire Wilson interviews psychiatrist Simon Wessely for The New Scientist. Psychiatrist Simon Wessely explores diseases like chronic fatigue syndrome, and has suggested that some diseases can be exacerbated by our mindset.Â
How might most of us experience the effects of the mind on the body?
In an average week you probably experience numerous examples of how what’s going on around you affects your subjective health. Most people instinctively know that when bad things happen, they affect your body. You can’t sleep, you feel anxious, you’ve got butterflies in your stomach… you feel awful.
When does that turn into an illness?
Such symptoms only become a problem when people get trapped in excessively narrow explanations for illness – when they exclude any broader consideration of the many reasons why we feel the way we do. This is where the internet can do real harm. And sometimes people fall into the hands of charlatans who give them bogus explanations.
Source: New Scientist
