ristics with their attitudes and self-reported behaviors regarding religion and spirituality in the clinical encounter. Med Care. 2006;44:446-53, and Curlin FA, Sellergren SA, Lantos JD, Chin MH. Physicians’ observations and interpretations of the influence of religion and spirituality on health. Archives

Curlin is less interested in the invisible causes of disease than in the primordial need for social connection that John Cacioppo introduced and that Curlin regards as a preexistent condition for medicine. If science can be viewed as a cognitive system that steps us back so that we can deal more objective