ABSTRACT
I suppose that I first became interested in psychology in my teenage years by reading articles and books about psychosomatic medicine; I was amazed and intrigued by the apparent power that the mind had over the body. This interest may have played some part in my decision to study medicine at the University of Edinburgh. I had attended high school in that beautiful but chilly city, and in those far-off days most students simply applied to (and were accepted by) their local university. My strongest subjects at school were English and Physics, an improbable combination for university study. I enjoyed sciences in general and biology in particular, so medicine seemed a good choice, offering a variety of later specialist options. Medical school was not a success, however; I enjoyed some of the basic sciences such as physiology and biochemistry but could not get my mind round the 137 (to me) unrelated facts and locations that seemed to make up anatomy. I did not take to the clinical subjects either, so after an embarrassing number of years salvaged the subjects I had finally passed (including anatomy!) and switched to a BSc in psychology. I should say that I did enjoy the topics in medicine that touched on brain function·neurology and psychiatry for example· and I suspect that if I had stayed the course in the medical faculty I might have ended up as a practitioner·or even a researcher·in one of these areas.
