A Brief History of Mind-Body Medicine

From its earliest sources the medical tradition has recognized the causal role of the interface of mind and body in health and disease. Cultural and historical circumstances have determined the degree to which each of these two key factors are emphasized. In modern times we are emerging from an exclusive materialistic emphasis on biology to a renewed acceptance and understanding of the role of the mind and consciousness in health and disease. This re-balancing of the two great forces of healing can be traced to a progressive expansion of knowledge in the fields of stress, past-traumatic stress, biofeedback, cognitive and behavior psychology, psychoneuroimmunology, neuroscience, and personal and transpersonal consciousness. The Integral perspective is a useful integrative model that expresses the inter-dependence of consciousness and biology in health and disease, allowing the practitioner to integrate the expanding set of methodologies that enable an increasingly subtle clinical approach to the critical interface of mind and body in health and disease. This paper is a review of the ongoing development of an increasingly sophisticated and subtle mind/body knowledge that offers the modern practitioner a more expansive approach to the alleviation of disease and realization of human flourishing