BEYOND THE RELAXATION RESPONSE: How to Harness the Healing Power of Your Personal Beliefs

by ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 1984

Mind over matter again, with a little boost from Jesus or Jehovah or Allah or Buddha or the Tao or whatever: a clear, cogent, but relentlessly utilitarian pitch from a psychosomatic salesman. Benson has strong scientific credentials--Associate Prof. of Medicine at Harvard Med. and Director of Behavioral Medicine and the Hypertension Section at Beth Israel in Boston--but in writing for a mass audience he descends to the Philistinism (and self-contradiction) of President Eisenhower's famous plea for a ""strongly felt religious faith--and I don't care what it is."" Benson has studied and extolled (in The Relaxation Response) the benefits of ""lowered heart rate, decreased rate of breathing, lowered blood pressure, slower brain waves, and an overall reduction of the speed of metabolism."" More to the point, he has tried to help people reach that happy state by (1) seeking out quiet surroundings, (2) deliberately relaxing one's muscles, (3) focusing for 15 minutes or so on a ""mental device,"" and (4) taking a passive, untroubled attitude toward distractions. Now Benson has discovered that by adding the ""Faith Factor"" (meditation + profound beliefs) you can get even more relaxed and therefore more healthy. For proof he cites his own work on meditating Tibetan monks, who can raise their skin temperature at will, sometimes by as much as 13 degrees Fahrenheit. So rummage around your philosophical-religious attic: you may have a bonanza lying there unused. Benson seems not to notice that this formula reduces religion to an anti-hypertensive drug, and that if you try to ""get into"" any of the great traditions with such a goal in mind you'll never get past the front door. Too facile by half.

Pub Date: June 1, 1984

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Times Books

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1984

Categories: NONFICTION