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I have watched a blister grow on the skin of a hypnotised subject touched by a finger tip, but told it was a lighted cigarette. I have watched a brother with terminal liver and colon cancer, given a two month prognosis by oncologists at the U of A (after surgery and other medical efforts for two years failed to halt the spread), decline chemo, adopt a macrobiotic food diet and the practice of meditation, then be pronounced cancer free 13 months later. Twenty years ago medical science denied any connection between diet and cancer. Today this has changed, but scientists still resist the possibility that diet can be curative. Few physicians would deny that, at times, medical science finds intself playing "catch up," with disciplines not restricted by the "scientific method" of research. Witness the slow acknowledgement of the efficacy of accupuncture as one example. Studies have demonstrated that certain attitudes correlate with good and bad prognoses in many illnesses. My dad, troubled most of his life by migranes, learned biofeedback and today has absolute control of migrane cycles, stopping them at the outset with mental imagery. Is it possible that, given the incredible power of our mind, we can affect the physiology of our bodies, including the brain's chemical balance, by the patterns of our thinking? Sinead and I believe diet and "positive" thinking patterns can be therapeutic because that has been our experience. Some folks in 12 Step programs apply the rationale that if someone quit drinking (using, etc.) without a 12 step program they must not have been a real alcoholic (addict, etc.) in the first place. With this simple logic they dismiss all input and declare irrelevant all experience from such people under the conclusion that such folks are "not one of us.": Are some of us using this same kind of logic to dismiss the experience of those who say diet and positive thinking were effective in their depression, i.e, "They were not suffering from true CD." Wouldn't it be interesting if someday we determine that negative thinking patterns change brain chemistry, and that, with rescue and transitional help from anti depressant meds, diligent training in positive thought patterns proves to be the best method of keeping brain chemistry healthy? In the meantime, I'll keep taking my St. John's Wort and Requip for whatever they have contributed to my coming "out of the darkness and into the light." (Title of the book- written by a psychiatrist - that boosted me down the path to peace of mind). And if I go back to a darker place I will use all the resources I can find, medical and spiritual, to come back out again. Chuck