Healing Yourself: A Step-By-Step Program for Better...

Healing Yourself: A Step-By-Step Program for Better Health Through Imagery by Martin L. Rossman MD (Walker & Co.: $17.95); Spiritual Healing in a Scientific Age by Robert Peel (Harper & Row: $19.95).

The jury is always going to be out when it comes to deciding the part the mind plays in combatting illness. Why is it that some folks take to their beds when stricken by the common cold, while others, even though terminally ill, can still perform admirably? Two worthwhile books, though taking different directions, explore the power of mental health.

Martin L. Rossman, a physician on the staff at the University of California’s Medical Center, San Francisco, believes, as Rudolph Virchow, the 19th-Century founder of pathology, put it: “Much illness is unhappiness sailing under a physiologic flag.”

Rossman’s rather laid-back regimen describes familiar relaxation techniques, various kinds of imagery and talking to an “inner adviser.” This person may be Jesus, Moses, Buddha, or even Yoda from “Star Wars,” depending on one’s persuasion.

Yes, it’s easy to see how to reduce stress, or overcome the symptoms of asthma, depression and headaches through calm-down techniques, but it’s very “iffy” whether imagery can dissolve benign breast tumors, as described in one case, or if a change of habits, such as diet or exercise, did the trick.

Robert Peel, who wrote a recent biography of Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of Christian Science as a method of faith healing, begins by lacerating traditional medical practices. He cites numerous cases of wrong treatment, the side effects of prescription drugs, resistance to antibiotics and the ineffectiveness of surgery.

The heart of his book, an apologia for the “divine science,” turns out to be the sworn testimonies of people, who state they have been cured of a wide variety of serious medical problems.