Molecules of Emotion: Why You Feel the Way You Feel

"A great read. It's full of real science, but has a real human thread to it. "
~ Written on 2007-12-18

"It's not very often that books on the body/mind connection are written by people with serious scientific credentials but this is definitely one that is.

Candace Pert describes in great detail but also in great clarity how she discovered the role of natural opiates and thereafter the body mind connection that gave us the new science of psycho-neuro-immunolgy.

A gripping read and a fascinating insight into what the mind really is ."
~ Written on 2007-08-25

"At a meeting I went to Candace Pert said she didn't quite understand why complementary practitioners needed her to 'validate' their work, that surely the fact that we (and our clients) know it works (when it does!) is validation enough.

Perhaps she was just being modest here - I have to say that it is precisely the work of Candace Pert and others in the field that gives me, as a practitioner, a way to understand what is happening, and therefore a way of explaining to clients, in a clear way, what they may be experiencing, without it being 'spooky wooky - woo, you must be a healer' - which can be disempowering or frightening to the client, depending on their belief system 'the practitioner healed me' and also places burdens on the practitioner's view of themselves.

Medical science also needed to understand 'what is going on' - and the respectability now of Psycho Neuro Immunology as a concept - due, in very large part, to Pert's work - means that without necessarily having any greater understanding of, or belief in, what 'goes on' in particularly bodywork and healing sessions, there is a greater willingness to suggest patients utilise this as adjuncts to conventional medicine.

The placebo effect is finally achieving respectability in its own right - how the mind and body can affect each other, positively, is being engaged with.

And .........on a slightly more humorous note, I have found it very useful to be able to blind a funding body with 'science' (which they didn't particularly understand) in order to get funding for one particular area where I work. This wasn't unethical, I had been asked to provide validation, and so had decided to ask clients to give subjective feedback of improvements in certain symptoms. A wiser person than myself said 'don't do that - provide some complicated science, they will be far more impressed'. So, to come back to Candace Pert's 'you don't need me to validate your work' - well, actually, we do!

And...........for the non-scientific, this is actually a VERY clear and readable account of neurochemistry. Having struggled hard to wade through some scientific papers, eyes crossed and with wet towel clamped firmly to head, Pert was a breath of fresh air!

Her individual journey is explored, and this is also very valid - there is of course a whole debate around how 'the observer' influences the experiment, so Pert's acknowledgement of WHO the scientist in the equation is utterly pertinent. The 'healer' and the 'client' engage together in a process - of course this does provide some stumbling blocks to the old double blind cross over randomised study, as the 'in the moment, this client, this therapist' is hugely central.

Very powerful book

However - Amazon, you have it wrong, this book 'Molecules of Emotion' is by Candace Pert - not Deepak Chopra - DC (wonderful though his work is) just wrote the foreword - there's somehow some sort of synchronicity going on here - often in 'science' the work of a woman scientist in the field gets unacknowledged or sidelines - cf Rosalind Franklyn's role in the 'discovery' of DNA.

Yes, yes, I know Amazon aren't doing this deliberately, its an annoying inputting blip which means that a lot of books with Forewords end up being credited to the foreword writer, rather than the author, due to the foreword writer being listed first.

I just thought it was amusingly illustrative in this case!
"
~ Written on 2007-03-11

"I found this a most interesting read. I would recommend this book for all/any interested in stories of scientific discovery and biography, especially those interested in life sciences, medicine, human biology etc. It is really a bit of an autobiography, so recognize that much of it is one person's view.

The story of the discovery of the opiate receptor is interesting and I think the science made very accessible to a non scientific audience, however bear in mind I do have a PhD in chemistry from a major UK university. So one of the things that most interested me was the personality of the author and her perspective on the politics of science and women in science.

I would be far from endorsing all that she says and the conclusions that she draws re the mind body etc., however Candace Pert has done serious and world respected science and I do think she has many valid points to make on the nature of the scientific establishment and how hard it can be to progress new ideas and for that the book is most interesting.

However it is also concerning to me that some people's reviews on this website suggest that Candace Pert has won a Nobel Prize or discovered a cure for AIDS - this is not the case and to be fair her book does not claim this - which makes me wonder on the rationality of some readers who appear to have drawn these mistaken conclusions from this book. It's easy to do an internet search on her name, check out her own website and see that she does not claim to be a Nobel laureate, although she does believe that her beloved Peptide T will prove to be a significant contributor to AIDS treatment (which may well still prove to be the case) - I have no trouble in believing her view in the book that significant commercial vested interests combined with science establishment turf wars may have thwarted its development. Drugs companies are not exactly the altruistic organizations we might prefer them to be and there are real issues around the fact that nature identical chemicals which may be safest for human drug treatments are not best for commercial exploitation from the patent point of view. Scientific establishments are also run by fallible human beings.

I was a little disappointed by some of the comments towards the end which seem to label all good positive attitudes as female/feminine and all negative / aggressive ones as masculine. There are really serious gender issues in science as in the rest of society and I felt this view a little simplistic, although I guess understandable given the author's own experiences.

So there is much of interest here and much to ponder, but also much that seems to have but a tenuous link with real science, so read with discernment as well as enjoyment and fascination!


However it is also concerning to me that some people's reviews on this website suggest that Candace Pert has won a Nobel Prize or discovered a cure for AIDS - this is not the case and to be fair her book does not claim this - which makes me wonder on the rationality of some readers who appear to have drawn these mistaken conclusions from this book. It's easy to do an internet search on her name, check out her own website and see that she does not claim to be a Nobel laureate, although she does believe that her beloved Peptide T will prove to be a significant contributor to AIDS treatment (which may well still prove to be the case) - I have no trouble in believing her view in the book that significant commercial vested interests combined with science establishment turf wars may have thwarted its development. Drugs companies are not exactly the altruistic organisations we might prefer them to be and there are real issues around the fact that nature identical chemicals which may be safest for human drug treatments are not best for commercial exploitation from the patent point of view. Scientific establishments are also run by fallible human beings.

I was a little disappointed by some of the comments towards the end which seem to label all good positive attitudes as female/feminine and all negative / aggressive ones as masculine. There are really serious gender issues in science as in the rest of society and I felt this view a little simplistic, although I guess understandable given the author's own experiences.

So there is much of interest here and much to ponder, but also much that seems to have but a tenuous link with real science, so read with discernment as well as enjoyment and fascination!"
~ Written on 2006-11-16

"Scientific evidence of body-mind and its affect on our health. Plus, how we chemically generate emotion. Details of how the body communicates with the brain via neuro-peptides. If that all sounds a little heavy, this is wound in with an autobiographical account of how Candace made the discoveries that won her the Nobel prize, despite the scientific community.
Julie-Ann Amos,"
~ Written on 2005-04-30