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S.V.

JAMA. 1970;211(8):1368-1369.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

The "as is" world of reality and the "as if" world of the imagination are worlds apart. Or are they? To the child and to the artist, imagination is reality. To the scientist-philosopher the mind's perception of an object is merely an illusory subjective "as if" representation of the latter's unfathomable "is"—the ding an sich. To the amputee, the "as if" of a phantom limb is a painful "as is."

Wolf1 suggests that a physiologically inappropriate "as if" response to environmental stimuli may cause such common diseases as hypertension, peptic ulcer, and diabetes mellitus. Essential hypertension may be an "as if" response to threatened blood loss. The hypertensive patient, Wolf contends, is an aggressive person subconsciously poised for violence. Like a blood donor about to lose blood through phlebotomy, he manifests a generalized peripheral vasoconstriction. The "as if" behavior of the duodenal ulcer patient is that of a man . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

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