I think this is a discussion worth having, if we can find a way. People who believe themselves to be ill are often told "it's all in your head" in a dismissive sort of way, just as people who struggle with being overweight are often dismissed as lacking in self-control and will-power.

The "it's all in your head" premise is a sort of fascinating one - the assumption is that you just *think* you're sick when you actually aren't - so either you're delusional (crazy) or you're faking it (which makes you a bad person.) But isn't there another possibility? Isn't it possible that 'mental'or 'spiritual' distress can manifest itself in genuine physical symptoms?

For instance, cancer - by some accounts, there have been people who overcame cancer after they divorced and removed themselves from *toxic* relationships. I'm referring to accounts I've read by Caroline Myss, and in Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom by Dr. Christianne Northrup.

I'm very much on the fence about all this, having grown up with a father who was constantly dosing himself with over the counter remedies, and a sister who's a hypochondriac - although she's in good company, along with Charles Darwin and Florence Nightingale, both hypochondriacs of the first degree. My sister early on discovered that being carsick got you moved up to the front seat - she never rode in the backseat again. I was also carsick occasionally, but the front seat was already occupied by my sister. Oh well. The same sister who suffered such horrible allergic reactions when around my dogs now has two dogs of her own, and a whole slew of "doggy friends" and is apparently able to participate in dogtraining classes without so much as the assistance of an antihistamine - how did that happen? The same sister is so incapacitated by the fear of flying that she can't even get on a plane - unless it's going to St. Kitt. I have listened for hour after expensive long-distance hour to countless stories of terrible suffering from her - chronic fatigue, incapacitating allergies, food intolerances, candida - you name it, she's suffered from it. She experiences apparently miraculous remissions, when it suits her, and devastating relapses, also when it suits her. On one hand, I'm fed up with it, on the other I know that she genuinely experiences the symptoms she has. The only way I ever know how my sister truly feels about anything is to take an inventory of her symptoms - if anything makes her unhappy on some level, she will probably come down with something in 12-24 hours, if not immediately.

I don't mean this to be a rant about my sister, or a suggestion that when you're sick you should go to a shrink instead of a doctor (decades of psychotherapy have done nothing for my sister.) Andrew Weil says you should listen to your body and what it's trying to tell you. Easier said than done, I think.