Whenever a first-class scholar, like this one, writes a careful, data-based book, which is at the same time accessible to the intelligent lay person, we must be grateful.This volume tells us much of the history, in the United States, of the various mind-over-body schemes:psychoanalysis, Transcendental Meditation, bio-feedback, Christian Science, and others.Nobody interested in modern American history can afford to ignore this story.
But I also found the book profoundly confusing.The author wants to tell us about these movements and how they were received by the public, but she has little interest, it seems, in the truth value behind the claims of these popular movements.Does bio-feedback, for instance, really help in reducing stress ?For that matter, is there such a thing as "stress" in the sense that the proponents of these movements have in mind ?Truth or untruth are things that hold little interest for this author.
Harrington generally tells the story of the beginnings of these movements as a series of successes, and then, for some reason, time and again, "things begin to unravel," as she has to state time and again.With all her sympathies for "mind-over-body,"sympathies that dominate her "narratives" (a favorite phrase of hers), it turns out, generally, and in stark contrast to her enthusiasms, that things don't work out after all, and it would seem -- though she never says this -- that it's probably best to be cynical about the whole lot of these movements.
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