The 3 basic beliefs about the cause of disease.

There are 3 basic beliefs about the cause of disease:

1. Biomechanical/"random" where the conscious self has little, if any, control and disease is caused by purely physical factors (genetic and environmental), sometimes understood, sometimes not,
2. Created primarily through thought patterns which affect emotions and impact on the physical body, and,
3. A mixture of the 2 above, where some diseases are caused purely by biomechanical factors independent of the mind and other diseases are caused by thought patterns, specifically patterns which create blockages in the energy body (aka "etheric body") leading to the malfunction of the physical body.

Conventional western medicine generally subscribes to view 1, whereas many in the "new thought" or "consciousness" movement subscribe to either view 2 or 3. Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) would be seen as belonging to group 3.  TV soap doctor Gregory House would belong to category 1.