Ze to self-reliance which leads to self-respect which fosters a liking of oneself, hence a desire to live. “Recovery depends on the mobilization of the patient's mechanism of resistance”(16). Mobilization comes from three sources: the patient’s willingness to take an active rather than passive role in combating his malady, a doctor’s sensitivity to the patient's self—interest, and a trusting communication chan- nel between the two. All of the aforementioned items appear to incorporate and coddle the mind rather than the body. This is as it should be, for Cousins believes in an inevitable link between mind/emotions and body/health. If endorphins are released when hugging and cuddling (as I read in an article sev- eral months ago), and these hormones are supposed to have a soothing effect on our senses, then would it not be reasonable to suggest that an isolated and alienated patient’s anxiety over a negative condition would inhibit their endorphin release thereby increasing stress, pain, and a lowered immune system? This is the cost of negative emo- tions. “Creativity, the will to live, hope, faith, and love have biochemical significance and contribute strongly to healing and to well-being. The positive emotions are life-giving experi- ences”(86). The doctor can make or break a sick patient’s confidence, a scary thought in the present state of medicine. The book declares that the med- ical profession has become too authoritarian, the role of healer too mystified. Technological advances is the principle factor in the stratification of the doc- tor-patient relationship. Gadgets condense time, short- ening the interaction with the physician and increasing the laying on of machines; “technol- ogy pushes the patient away from the physician’(135). It decreases the attentiveness required of the healer and replaces it with impersonal mechanized devices that evaluate the value and worth of the subject. This is not a forum for positive emotional support. Patients need dialogue, human contact, and warmth. The wise doctor is not condescending but treats the patient as an equal partner in the fight against sickness. The wise doctor engages and directs the patient’s positive emotions rather than scroung- ing for empirical evidence. The healer’s greatest role is to encourage the body’s mental and physical natural resources to conquer disease. ‘The will to live is not a theoretical abstrac- tion, but a physiological reality with therapeutic characteris- tics’(44). Doctors do not have a monopoly in the life-giving and tak- ing process. Every decision one makes about the maintenance of one’s life is factored into the equation of one’s existence. This attitude requires a long term perspective rather than a short one, difficult to do in our instant-food, instant-gratification, existential culture. Speed and quantity is valued more than! quality and perfection. This results in both physical and psy- chological constipation: “our experiences come at us in such’ profusion and from so many different directions that they are never really sorted out, much less absorbed. The result is clutter and confusion. We gorge the senses and starve the sensibili- ties”(65). This described life is not so different from the ones that are often led here within the hallowed halls of our beloved institution. Some joke proudly about the caffeine consumption that will most probably take off five years from the end of their lives; the caffeine consump- tion is directly proportional to the amount of blood, sweat, and X tears shed for this paper, that exam. We succumb to viruses en masse, eat horrible food in vast quantities, have nervous breakdowns, conduct nasty, brutish, and short love affairs in search of our identities, break a few hearts to pad our battered egos, communicate via tiny messages through impersonal computers, and drug ourselves with numbing alcohol at social events so as to hide our insecurities and absolve ourselves of anything stupid we may doe When | posited this seeming mass suicide to another student, he replied, “Hey, we’re only human.” Could this be true? Was The Terminator correct when he said oh-so-adroitly, “Tt’s in your nature to destroy yourselves?” Doctors are members of the human race as well; do they deliberately go against human nature to save the anonymous victims? Do we unwitting trot, lem- ming-like, to them for a quicker, more sophisticated means of death (pills, diets, tests, drugs, etc.)? We would be the foolish ones, paying for our own executioner. overcoming my initial dismay, I found my notes from the section on Pablo Casals in which he says, “Each man has inside him a basic decency and goodness. If he listens to it and acts on it, he is, giv- ing a great deal of what it is the world needs most. It is not com- plicated but it takes courage. It takes courage for a man to lis ten to his own goodness and act on it. Do we dare to be out- selves?”(79). If one understands the body’s natural tendency to heal itself without synthetic prodding, then one will also under- stand the importance of listening to the true human within, devoid of peer pressure, fear, panic, and stress. It is amazing how much people appreciate an opportunity to speak freely of how a it : Fs : :