But the thought content would have absolutely nothing to do with it. Your neuroses about having a cold wouldn't modulate your cold specifically and not modulate some other nonspecific disease process related to inflammatory response, of which many are.
Usually yes. Remember symptoms can be influenced by the person's mental state. Several mental states that are associated with physiological states are modulated by the person's conscious.
There are, for example, studies showing that someone's level of inebriation is affected by the psychosocial. Give a guy 5 shots of vodka, put him in from of 5 nuns with rulers in their hands vs give a guy 5 shots of vodka in front of 5 strippers and the disinhibition will be more increased by the latter.
Likewise, if someone had a cold and thought they were going to die (and it's an over-reaction based on excessive anxiety), I would expect that person to have a much worse time dealing with it. The person could over-interpret the symptoms, then believe they are doing worse.
In a prior post, I mentioned the lice-itch thing because several coworkers and I, whenever we see a patient with lice or scabies get an itch sensation, yet none of us ever got it from a patient so far. It's purely psychosomatic. Unfortunately, I rarely see this taught is a psychiatric curriculum but I have seen this taught a few times while I was a psychology major.
A person who believes they have a cold but does not have one may actually end up getting one through an indirect process based on their false belief. E.g. if someone falsely believes they have a cold, they may believe that they do not need to be vaccinated and then may later end up getting a cold for real that could've been avoided with vaccination.
quantum physics--properly understood and applied--is likely to be a major player in a paradigm shift in psychology and neuroscience, in the next few decades.
Very much agree. I am well aware that Quantum Physics may play a role with the mind affecting reality. I've read up on this a few times during my college years when I was actually semi-proficient in physics to the point where I could actually understand some of quantum physics mentioned in studies. (Not anymore!) The problem, as you mentioned, is that too many people have taken it steps too far and apparently with a complete desire to profit. Deepak Chopra selling his meditation crystals and the claims of levitation by the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi that have been debunked (the meditation is supposed to create the feeling of levitation, not actual levitation itself).
I brought it up because I've seen a few people take the Quantum Physics thing too far. A good friend of mine in college failed out of engineering because, after reading some books on Quantum Physics, became convinced that he no longer needed to study and would pass all of his exams with flying colors simply based on his belief. This obviously did not work, and the worse he did, the more he attributed his poor performance to lack of faith and belief and then became more determined to do well simply by just believing he would. It obviously did not work.
