Religion and Self-Healing

"Valle and Prince (1989) proposed that religion elicits self-healing mechanisms through giving people a sense of belongingness that engages feelings of euphoria and omnipotence produced by the body's own morphine-like substances, the endorphins.  Religious healing involves a dynamic function of the psyche that broadens the individual's repertoire of coping abilities.  Valle and Prince characterized religious healing experiences in terms of activations of the non-dominant-hemisphere processes that elicit endogenous healing mechanisms by experiences that reduce uncertainty, anxiety, and depression."

Winkelman, Michael M. (2010).  Shamanism:  A Biopsychosocial Paradigm of Consciousness and Healing.  Santa Barbara: Praeger.