The Origins of Health and Disease

Half-title......Page 3
Title......Page 5
Copyright......Page 6
Dedication......Page 7
Contents......Page 9
Figures......Page 11
Tables......Page 14
Boxes......Page 15
Acknowledgements......Page 17
What is this book about?......Page 19
Two philosophies......Page 22
The mechanical analogy......Page 23
The ecological analogy......Page 27
Treatment and prevention from the perspective of the two philosophies......Page 29
Moderate success......Page 32
Poor success......Page 33
Where is modern medicine going?......Page 34
A brief history of psychological therapies......Page 35
Where is psychotherapy going?......Page 38
The behaviour of living systems......Page 39
The laws of physics......Page 41
The discovery of parallel processing systems......Page 43
Basic features of the theory......Page 44
Health versus disease......Page 45
The influence of Cartesian dualism......Page 48
What is this thing called mind?......Page 51
Methodological complementarity and emergentism......Page 52
Why do living organisms need a mind? Why did it evolve?......Page 55
The mind as a signal of the internal environment......Page 56
The mind as a signal of the external environment......Page 57
Introduction to the immune system......Page 58
Relationship between the mind/brain, behaviour and the immune system: psychoneuroimmunology......Page 61
Introduction to the immune theory of depression......Page 63
How the external environment alters the internal environment......Page 66
Mood and emotion and internal–external balance......Page 69
Immune conditioning......Page 71
Introduction to the gut......Page 73
Relation of the mind/brain to the gut......Page 74
The effect of the mind on the gut......Page 75
The behaviour inhibition system......Page 76
Putting it all together: the infornet, the inf lammatory response system, the HPA axis and the behaviour inhibition and activation systems......Page 79
The mind, the infornet and the specific system: a summary......Page 86
Introduction......Page 88
What is personality?......Page 89
Trait dimensions and health......Page 91
1. Symptom reporting and diagnosis bias......Page 93
2. Disease affecting mental states......Page 94
Putting the first two models together......Page 95
3. Unhealthy habits, external environment......Page 96
4. Unhealthy habits, internal environment......Page 97
5. Common factors......Page 98
Integration of the five mechanisms; the integrative model......Page 99
Personality and disease: specific relationship investigations......Page 101
The disease-prone personality......Page 105
Fatigue, depression and anxiety in major illness......Page 107
Other psychological variables that correlate with neuroticism or its components (depression, anxiety and fatigue)......Page 109
Recent developments in trait personality theory: the Big Two and the Big One......Page 110
Personality and underlying biological approaches: a biological explanation for the Big Two......Page 113
The meaning of infornet dysregulation......Page 115
The meaning of general infornet dysregulation, and different types of dysregulation......Page 121
The meaning of specific infornet dysregulation: allergy and asthma......Page 123
A classification of diseases......Page 126
General infornet dysregulation: summary......Page 127
Some potential tests......Page 128
A very brief history of networks......Page 131
Clocks versus flocks: an intuitive first understanding......Page 132
Does structure make a difference?......Page 133
Units, causality and stability......Page 135
Perception, pattern recognition and hidden layers......Page 138
Pattern recognition......Page 140
Tolerance of local error......Page 141
Distributed memory and distributed cause......Page 142
Intuition, soft decisions and multi tasking......Page 143
Resolution, history and local minima......Page 145
Networks as learning devices......Page 146
Associative learning......Page 147
Supervised learning......Page 148
The genome as the supervisor......Page 150
Self-regulation......Page 152
Homeostasis and homeodynamics......Page 156
The theory of the infornet: its representation in network theory......Page 158
Self-organisation......Page 160
Representation of the meaning of the infornet......Page 162
Summary of network properties and the infornet and a prediction......Page 163
A prediction from infornet theory......Page 164
Associative learning......Page 165
Food intolerance: description of the phenomenon......Page 166
Explanation for non-biologically mediated adverse food effects......Page 169
Food intolerance as a derivative of taste aversion learning......Page 170
Detecting food intolerance......Page 172
The effect of stress in adults, in the fetus and in childhood......Page 173
Long-term effects of stress explained by associative learning......Page 175
Predictions from infornet theory......Page 178
Summary......Page 179
The compensation rule......Page 180
Repetitive strain injury: description of the disease......Page 182
Repetitive strain injury: explanation......Page 183
Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD): description of the disease......Page 184
ADHD explained......Page 186
Chronic fatigue syndrome: description of the disease......Page 188
The infornet explanation of CFS and depression: introduction......Page 194
Three ways in which the compensation rule leads to long-term activation of the behavioural inhibition system......Page 195
Combination of infection and stress......Page 196
Ignoring reactive inhibition: the effect of repetitive exploratory activity......Page 198
Goal-based explanations of negative affect: self-actualisation, learned helplessness, goal conflict and interruption of goal pursuit......Page 202
Explanations why some people develop fatigue and others depression......Page 205
Biological contributors to general behavioural inhibition and infornet dysregulation......Page 209
Summary and predictions......Page 210
Asthma: description of the disease......Page 212
The non-specific inflammatory response......Page 214
The asthma specific response......Page 215
From precursor to specific disease......Page 216
Gene expression......Page 217
Mechanisms in the specific system......Page 218
Idiopathic variability......Page 219
Trigger factors......Page 220
Fuzzy boundaries between dysregulatory disease......Page 222
Common predictors......Page 223
Summary......Page 224
The placebo in medicine and the art of medicine......Page 225
Drug therapy and the problem of depression......Page 230
Placebos in psychotherapy research......Page 236
The dodo bird effect......Page 237
Component studies......Page 238
Explanations for the dodo bird effect and null results from component studies......Page 239
Therapist effects......Page 242
Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM)......Page 244
Does complementary and alternative medicine work? The problem of placebos in CAM medicine research......Page 247
Use of complementary medicine and alternative medicine......Page 252
Specific and non-specific revisited......Page 253
How effective is non-specific therapy?......Page 255
Comparison with biological treatments......Page 256
Effect size......Page 257
Percentage improving......Page 258
The problem of trial effects......Page 259
Psychotherapy for major illness......Page 261
Conclusions......Page 263
Introduction......Page 265
Response expectancy theory......Page 266
Conditioning theory and its relation to response expectancy theory.......Page 267
Infornet reinterpretation of response expectancy and conditioning theories......Page 269
Short-term placebo effects of the subjective experience of pain......Page 271
Placebo pain paradigm......Page 272
Short-term placebo effects of a physiological outcome: placebo response to bronchodilator inhalers......Page 273
Placebo asthma paradigm......Page 274
Commentary on short-term placebo effects......Page 276
Long-term therapeutic effects......Page 277
Infornet interpretation of long-term therapeutic effects: overview......Page 279
Changing negative cognitions and affect......Page 282
Changing positive cognitions and affect......Page 283
Therapy as lifestyle change and the attainment of important goals......Page 284
Therapy as a disinhibitor......Page 287
Relaxation......Page 288
Short-term versus long-term mechanisms: the evidence......Page 290
Unknowns......Page 292
Long-term change in physiological outcome......Page 293
Predictions......Page 296
Introduction......Page 298
The psychology of people living during the Palaeolithic......Page 301
Happiness and pleasure as signals that you are getting it right – most of the time......Page 303
A healthy lifestyle: general orientation and the importance of wealth......Page 305
A healthy lifestyle: lifestyle choices......Page 308
Positive social interactions: the goal of relatedness, being loved and cared for by others and loving and caring......Page 309
Quality and nature of goal attainment: autonomy, competence, learned helplessness theory, chronic stress, individualised goal achievement......Page 311
Rest and relaxation......Page 313
Conflict resulting from simultaneous completion of incompatible activity, including simultaneous immune and external challenge......Page 314
Too much of a good thing: the problem of reactive inhibition......Page 316
Infornet theory and lifestyle: an interactive perspective......Page 319
Summary......Page 321
11 Infornet theory in perspective......Page 322
Summary of infornet theory......Page 326
References......Page 330
Index......Page 357