STRESS AS HEALING FACTOR
CAN we overcome stress? If we can, should we? Today psych physiologists are beginning to formulate models showing that stress, anxiety, and depression influence the body to create or aggravate mental and physical disorders. Greater stress and anxiety tend to degenerate the physical body and depress one’s mental outlook on the world. Are there ways to reverse this process of physic al degeneration while maximizing the condition under which positive attitudes, beliefs, and life-style changes can heal the afflicted body and mind? The basic assum p tion at the root of current research is that there is both a psychological and a physical component to all disease. Another common assumption is that individual is able to exercise a marked degree of will power in the development, aggravation, and alleviation of these disorders. From these assumptions one might conclude that a personal psychology or philosophy may have a pronounced effect upon whether a person maintains a positive attitude reg