Abstract
The psychological and spiritual sides of healing, long poor cousins of mainstream medicine, are finding new support from some institutions with growing power in medical care: health maintenance organizations (HMOs). At a recent conference here, Dr Herbert Benson, President of the Harvard Medical School's Mind/Body Medical Institute, said that his office at Harvard was now getting five or six calls a week from HMOs that were interested in the medical uses of relaxation and other nontraditional treatment methods. The reason, he said, is clear: if such methods succeed reliably in reducing workload, they are "just plain money in the bank for the HMOs." . . . The recent conference in Boston was a milestone in the growth of interest in what is sometimes called behavioral medicine. A few years ago this would have been the farthest fringe of medicine. And even now there was a hint of sideshow. There were snake handlers here, and some recommended the snakes as a way to induce relaxation.
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