I'm revisiting some email exchanges from the start of my inquiry earlier this year (2008). My inquiries led me to Dr Bonnie O'Conner, of Brown University Faculty Development in Pediatrics and she provided me with several leads, for which I am very grateful.
Here follows her email to me and I have added the links where possible to help you start your own threads:
===========March 12, 2008===============
Hi Phil -
Thanks for your inquiry, and good for you for pursuing this work! The first person that comes to mind in this regard is Candace Pert, whose book Molecules of Emotion will lay out the thoughts of an NIH scientist on the physiology and biochemistry of emotional states and responses. The place to go within the further medical literature, if you want to see their take on this is to the field of psychoneuroimmunology (try it on PubMed). As you may imagine, this is a controversial field, but gaining steadily in acceptance and getting more attention; again a good focus on physiologic models and explanations.
Herbert Benson’s work, and that of others in Mind-Body medicine, will be important, as will Jon Kabat-Zinn’s work on mindfulness-based stress reduction. The whole “alternative” field of energy medicine will be a good place to browse – see works of Tiffany Field and Janet Quinn on Therapeutic Touch and Touch therapies in general, and check out the International Society for the Study of Subtle Energies and Energy Medicine.
Also some of the following:
• Dreher & Domar, Self Nurture
• Dreher H: “A challenge to the mind-body health movement.” Advances in Mind-Body Medicine #17, 2001: 147-150
• Diener, Suh & Oishi, “Recent findings on subjective well-being.” Indian Journal of Clinical Psychology, March 1997
• Anatovsky A. Health, Stress and Coping: New Perspectives on mental and physical well-being. Anatovsky coined the term “salutogenesis” (1979), used and explained in this book. (This concept has been taken up by the Samueli Institute, q.v.)
•Smith DF, “Functional salutogenic mechanisms of the brain.” Perspectives in Biology and Medicine #45(3), 2002:319-328.
• Coleman, D (ed.) Healing Emotions (published 1997 by the Mind and Life Institute, q.v. also) - a record of the 1991 Mind and Life conference which brought together the Dalai Lama, physicians, psychologists, and meditation teachers and started an ongoing collaboration)
I would also recommend works such as Paul Farmer’s Infections and Inequalities: The Modern Plagues (1999) for perspectives on social factors and particularly entrenched social inequalities on health and well-being.
Good luck!
Cheers,
Bonnie O’C
===============
My footnotes:
Candace Pert has a wonderful podcast called The Physics of Emotion. She has also Published another book called "Everything You Need to Know to feel Go(o)d", which is premised on that we are "hard wired for bliss". She has also written many other books.
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1 comment:
It all makes good sense to me and if we were taken care of so that we have no worries then we would feel good more often then not. Then, of course it would a dandy world. However, this is not the reality as we live in a world organized to benefit people differently. Being kind to each other is paramount to being happy. In a world divided according to those who have and those who don't, it is only the surplus labour of the poor and working classes that support the rest so that they can "feel good" more often then not. People who have never gone hungry have no idea. Increasingly, poverty is being criminalized. Alcohol is the number one choice of drug here where I live in Alberta and it is killing people.
I enjoyed reading this and see the value of exercise and being good to one and another and respecting each other's feelings.
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