Laura M. Westall's A Common-Sense View of the Mind Cure is a clear, practical early twentieth-century introduction to mental healing, mind-cure theory, and the relation between thought, health, and habit.
Writing in the New Thought and mind-cure tradition, Westall argues that the mind and body cannot be treated as wholly separate forces. Her approach is practical rather than obscure: she presents mind cure as a way of understanding how thought, attention, emotion, suggestion, and expectation may influence physical and nervous conditions. The book belongs to the same broad movement that produced Christian Science, New Thought, mental healing, and early mind-body health literature, but it is written in a comparatively direct and accessible style.
First published in 1908, A Common-Sense View of the Mind Cure is valuable both as a historical self-help text and as part of the development of modern mind-body thinking. Some of its claims belong to its period and should not be read as a substitute for medical care, but its central concern remains recognisable: the active role of mental state, disciplined thought, calmness, and self-command in human well-being. The book is especially useful for readers interested in New Thought, mind cure, positive thinking, mental healing, self-improvement, spiritual healing, and the history of alternative health movements.
This A&D Books edition preserves a concise and readable work from the early literature of mental healing, suited to readers of classic self-help, New Thought, mind-body medicine history, and practical spiritual psychology.