The mind-body problem, the mass media, and the experience of HIV infection.

Abstract

This study investigates the way in which complex scientific and psychological knowledge is interpreted by the mass media and how these interpretations can affect individuals. Specifically, it focuses on the ways in which the mind-illness belief--the belief that thoughts and feelings have a direct impact on health--can influence people infected with HIV. After a brief survey of philosophical approaches to the mind-body problem, medical research pertaining to the mind-illness belief is summarized. This is followed by analyses of selected media presentations intended for popular consumption (popular psychology and television). Finally, the mind-illness belief is tracked in the personal accounts of people suffering from HIV. Eighteen subjects infected with HIV were interviewed for between two and seven hours. The interviews were open-ended, but focused on the mind-illness belief as it impinges on various aspects of the experience of their illness. The interview protocols are analyzed within the format of a multiple-case study. Factors accounting for the popularity of this belief are suggested, including the need to feel in control of one's body and thus one's life and death. Although subjects interpret the mind-illness belief in distinctive ways, with corresponding effects on the conduct of their lives and the quality of their experience of the illness, many held a similar interpretation: They tend to stress the maintenance of a positive attitude as a guarantee of health. The same interpretation pervades the mass media. It is an interpretation which ignores philosophical problems and simplifies as well as exaggerates scientific findings regarding the relationship between psychological and physical processes. Possible consequences of holding a simplified mind-illness belief include (1) unsuccessful and dangerous attempts to deny emotions in order to maintain a positive attitude; (2) neglect of medical remedies and (3) the withholding of social support from fellow sufferers who do not accept this belief or who are dying. The interviews suggested that subjects who hold a more simplified version of the mind-illness belief are more likely to employ this belief in self-damaging ways. It is suggested that simplifications conveyed by the mass media in other domains of public concern may have similarly harmful effects on individuals.