Mind over matter

1. The fanciful notion of “mind over matter”, where the mind can exert influence over the body, is not so fanciful after all. It is possible for the mind to impose lasting physiological changes on the brain to overcome psychiatric problems such as obsessive compulsive disorder.

So argues Prof Jeffrey M Schwartz, one of the world’s leading proponents of mind over matter in a psychiatric sense, who was in Dublin yesterday to deliver a lecture at St Patrick's Hospital.

He discussed the complex interplay between mind and brain in a lecture entitled, “The Mind and the Brain, Are They Related?”

Prof Schwartz is a research psychiatrist in the school of medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles, and has spent years studying conscious awareness and the idea that the actions of the mind can have an effect on the workings of the brain. “I use obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) as a model for the issue of the relationship between the mind and the brain,” he said yesterday evening before the lecture.

The brain is the organ that controls our experience of the world via the senses, while the mind is our ability to be self-aware. In a neuro-psychiatric disorder such as OCD, the brain malfunctions causing us to respond inappropriately to the world, seen in compulsive behaviours such as obsessive washing of the hands and overwhelming fears of contamination or violence, amongst others, Prof Schwartz explained.

- Mind over matter is not fanciful, says psychiatrist, IrishTimes.com, July 11, 2008.

2. The Lakers are monitoring things beyond wondering if an old team can push up the pace in Mike D’Antoni’s quick-strike offense.

Part of the Lakers’ development also takes place on the trainer’s table.

The Lakers’ backcourt currently misses Steve Nash (fractured left leg) and Steve Blake (lower abdominal strain), the team already penciling them out tonight at Memphis (8-2) and Saturday at Dallas (7-6).

Kobe Bryant has paid attention to his strained right foot, while Dwight Howard penned his play at 75-80 percent since having back surgery seven months ago. Jordan Hill constantly keeps tabs on the herniated disk in his back. D’Antoni has relied on physical therapy and pain medication after having recent knee replacement surgery.

The Lakers (6-6) took the day off Thursday to spend Thanksgiving with close ones. It also gave them time to heal. There's one former Lakers player who appreciates how the team handles such injuries.

“There’s so many fender benders that you have,” A.C. Green said in an interview with this newspaper. “At the same time, it’s fun.”

Green earned the “Iron Man” nickname for holding the all-time NBA record for consecutive games played (1,192), dating from Nov. 19, 1986, to April 18, 2001, while playing for the Lakers, Suns, Mavericks and Heat. Green led the Showtime Lakers in rebounding in six of his eight seasons, playing on two NBA championship teams in that span. He also provided leadership as a reserve for the Lakers' 1999-2000 championship squad.

Green lived by the motto, “If I can breathe, I can play.” He even played in a game a day after having an emergency root canal.

“It’s just mind over matter,” Green said. “You have to learn what that is and they can apply that to their own situation. They just have to put aside how they really feel and have your mind dictate what's going to happen instead of your body.”

- Former Lakers forward A.C. Green talks about importance of game time, DailyNews.com, November 22, 2012.

3. It’s a weight loss regime that seems to guarantee success, but researchers may have to work on the name. Proving, it seems, that fighting the flab really is a question of mind over matter, psychologists in America “brainwashed” a number of volunteers into losing their taste for certain fattening foods by implanting unpleasant childhood memories about them.

Even though the memories were false, the psychologists from the University of California managed to successfully turn people off strawberry ice cream, pickles and hard-boiled eggs.

In each case they manipulated the volunteers into believing that the foods had made them sick when they were children.

The scientists said they had also successfully implanted positive opinions about asparagus by convincing subjects that they once loved the vegetable.

Elizabeth Loftus, a distinguished professor of psychology, social behaviour and criminology who led the team, told the newspaper that, if perfected, the technique could potentially induce people to eat better by implanting good memories about fruits and vegetables and bad ones about low-nutrient, high-calorie foods.

But according to Stephen Behnke, the ethics director of the American Psychological Association, implanting memories also “raises profound ethical questions”.

“Say, for example, we could change a person’s belief about their entire childhood,” he told the Los Angeles Times. “Would doing so be ethical?”

The food studies are the latest in a string of memory experiments by Professor Loftus, who is most famous for her work on recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse. She has suggested that most of these memories are probably false.

Prof Loftus told the newspaper that the food experiments were the first in which she had explored a positive, practical application of memory manipulation.

In the strawberry ice cream experiment a group of students were asked to fill out forms about their food experiences and preferences. Some of the subjects were then given a computer analysis which falsely said they had become sick from eating strawberry ice cream as children.

Almost 20% later agreed in a questionnaire that strawberry ice cream had made them sick and that they intended to avoid it in the future.

The results were even more startling in a second experiment, when students were asked to detail the imaginary ice cream episode, during which a total of 41% said they believed the tale and intended to avoid strawberry ice cream in the future.

Prof Loftus, although acknowledging that the issue was ethically tricky, said the techniques could be used by parents to persuade children to eat more healthily.

“People kind of cringe at the idea that anyone would suggest that they lie to their children, but they do it all the time when they tell them Santa Claus exists and so does the tooth fairy,” she told the newspaper.

But before it can be hailed as a cure for childhood obesity, the scientists will have to scale a major obstacle: so far they have failed to implant false beliefs about chocolate chip cookies and crisps.

- Dieting? It’s all in the mind as volunteers are brainwashed, TheGuardian.com, August 3, 2005.

本文仅代表作者本人观点，与本网立场无关。欢迎大家讨论学术问题，尊重他人，禁止人身攻击和发布一切违反国家现行法律法规的内容。

我要看更多专栏文章

About the author:

Zhang Xin is Trainer at chinadaily.com.cn. He has been with China Daily since 1988, when he graduated from Beijing Foreign Studies University. Write him at: zhangxin@chinadaily.com.cn, or raise a question for potential use in a future column.

（作者张欣 中国日报网英语点津 编辑：王伟）