An invitation from Harvard Medical School and The Mind/Body Medical Institute, Deaconess Hospital, to speak at its conference on Spirituality & Healing in Medicine came to The Christian Science Board of Directors in 1995. After very careful consideration, the invitation was accepted. This acceptance was based on the section in the Church Manual that provides for "a Christian Scientist to confer with an M. D. on Ontology, or the Science of being." See Church Manual, p. 47.
The purpose of the conference was to provide a forum for more public exploration of the relationship of thought to health. Dr. Herbert Benson, founding president of the Mind/Body Medical Institute, and the Mind/Body Medical Institute Associate Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, has been the convener of the conferences. Benson had begun to research and test a neglected aspect of medicine—self-care. This is the third leg of what he describes as the three-legged stool of healthcare—surgery, pharmacy, and self-care. Self-care is the principal subject of these conferences.
Interest in this aspect of health has grown over the seven years of these semiannual conferences. More than ten thousand doctors, mental health practitioners, nurses, facility administrators, and clergy have now participated in a total of 14 conferences that have been centered in Boston and held alternately in other major cities around the United States.
