Healing Spaces

In her new book, linkurl:__Healing Spaces: The Science of Place and Well-Being__,;http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog/STEHEA.html neuroendocrine immunologist linkurl:Esther Sternberg;http://www.esthersternberg.com/ gives scientific evidence to support the notion that where you heal has an impact on how well and how fast you heal. Her thesis ties the healing process to key physiological pairings: the relationship between sensory perception and the brain, the brain's connections to the immune system, and the interplay between emotions and the nervous system. She shows that stress and relaxation responses acting on our endocrine system can either retard or promote well-being. She also explores the ways we map and experience "place" and the physiological mechanisms that are involved in that phenomenon.There seem to be two books here. The first describes the neurological systems and structures through which we perceive our surroundings. The second begins when Sternberg turns to the suggestion that some built spaces -- from those designed by linkurl:Frank Gehry;http://www.foga.com/ to those created by linkurl:Walt Disney;http://disneyworld.disney.go.com/ -- can promote well being by making us feel happy and secure. She cites research by Massachusetts Institute of Technology scientist linkurl:Matthew Wilson,;http://web.mit.edu/picower/faculty/wilson.html who implanted rats with electrodes to record neural activation in the brain. Electrodes connected to an area of the hippocampus where "place cells" are located, linkurl:show;http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8351520 that the rat's place cells tell it exactly where it is at any particular moment. Sternberg asserts that the same is true of humans. These cells also integrate visual, olfactory and other sensory data that give us an integral sense of place.This leads Sternberg to the complex and still-murky area of memory and its role in establishing a sense of place. She relates the current hypotheses regarding how memory is stored in various parts of the brain and concludes with the acknowledgement that "the complete explanation has yet to be worked out." We do know that when the hippocampus gets involved in forming a memory, she writes, the memory of the place it happens is particularly vivid.Sterberg then delves into how place can contribute to learned fear or learned safety. Citing the work of Nobel laureate linkurl:Eric Kandel,;http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/2000/kandel-autobio.html Sternberg explores the concept of "conditioned place preference," which addresses the phenomenon of associating place with positive, pleasurable sensory stimulation.To explore this theory further, Sternberg visits the Shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes in France, a Catholic pilgrimage site known for its miracle cures. Relating some of the stories of those who claim to have been cured at the shrine, Sternberg concludes that all the accounts coincided with powerful emotional experiences. This, she writes, points to the role of emotion in the healing process.There follows an excursion into the recent work of linkurl:Richard Davidson;http://psych.wisc.edu/faculty/bio/davidson.html at the University of Wisconsin. He linkurl:studied;http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/?view=usa&ci=019513043X the brain activity of meditating Buddhist monks, and showed that the centers of the brain that are activated by meditation are related to feelings of love and attachment. Citing similar linkurl:work;http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6T0G-4KGX8FB-1&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=478630167bc57578ab7bc46a4b098f1d done by linkurl:Mario Beauregard;http://www.mindbodysymposium.com/Beyond-the-Mind-Body-Problem/Speakers-Panelists/Mario-Beauregard-PhD.html and linkurl:Vincent Paquette;http://www.cihr-irsc.gc.ca/e/20320.html in Canada on Carmelite nuns who pray their way to an ecstatic state, Sternberg concludes that "two essential elements that can help an individual heal are expectations and social support."This leads Sternberg to look at data on the placebo effect, that phenomenon which causes you to feel better "because you believe that something will heal you ‐ whether that something is a drug, an action, a person, a procedure, or a place." A placebo can sometimes trigger the release of the body's own healing chemicals, and Sternberg submits that this may explain the healing that is reported at places like Lourdes.Sternberg also considers animal study data regarding the association of reward with preference for a particular place. She writes that "animal studies suggest that people who have learned to associate a place with a positive feeling -- or with hopes that the place will heal -- will benefit from simply being in that place." This, Sternberg states, may mean that, "Some of the beneficial effects of places that promote healing must come in part from the same brain pathways that are activated during the placebo effect -- the dopamine reward and the opiate endorphin pathways. Such healing spaces might trigger the release of nerve chemicals and brain hormones that stimulate the immune system to speed healing."Sternberg ends __Healing Spaces__ by considering how data on the healing effects of place might better inform hospital design. She quotes the World Health Organization's definition of health as "a state of complete physical, mental and social well‐being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity" and asserts that the "built environment affects all these aspects of health." She explains that all sorts of national health and architectural design organizations, such as linkurl:The Center for Health Design;http://www.healthdesign.org/ in California, are exploring connections between place and health.__Healing Spaces__ sometimes strains at its connection points, with Sternberg jumping too readily from one set of findings to another. The linkages she constructs between experimental data and anecdotal evidence can stretch the imagination. Sternberg often inserts superfluous information about the various researchers that makes you feel like you're reading __People__ magazine interspersed with scientific information.But overall, __Healing Spaces__ takes an interesting concept -- the healing potential of place -- and weaves together information, data, and knowledge that could support that idea. It is a frustrating, but enlightening mix of the scholarly and witty; the academic and gossipy, in the service of making a case for a concept that might stand pretty solid on its own.linkurl:__Healing Spaces: The Science of Place and Well-Being__,;http://www.amazon.com/Healing-Spaces-Science-Place-Well-Being/dp/0674033361 by Esther M. Sternberg, M.D., Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2009. 352 pp. ISBN: 978-0-674-03336-8. $27.95.__Judy Borree has a Masters degree in Social Work from the University of Wisconsin. She is a psychotherapist at The Psychology Center in Madison, has taught at the University of Wisconsin School of Social Work. She has also worked in the public grade schools in Madison, Wisconsin, at an inpatient facility for emotionally disturbed children and their families, and for the Iowa County Hospice organization.__ **__Related stories:__***linkurl:The healing arts;http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/55663/ [23rd April 2009]*linkurl:The Biological Basis of the Placebo Effect;http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/13424/ [9th December 2002]

Healing Spaces

A new book considers research on how location might aid the repair of our bodies and minds

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