Close to the Bone: Life Threatening Illness and the Search for Meaning [Paperback]

Jean Shinoda Bolen (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 3, 1998

The bestselling author of Goddesses in Every Woman sheds light on the experiences of the seriously ill, and shows how facing mortality can be a life-transforming process. Patients, their caretakers, and their loved ones will all reap tremendous benefits from this spiritual but pragmatic book.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The crisis brought on by a serious or disastrous illness is the concern of this richly probing essay by a Jungian analyst and medical doctor. Although various diseases are touched on, cancer?especially as it affects women?is Bolen's focus. Yet far from being a grim tract, this book is a kind of metaphysical how-to filled with hope, second chances and sound guidance. But from the very first "initiation story" the author narrates for us?the myth of the abduction to the underworld of Persephone, an ancient Greek emblem of spring, vitality, rebirth?Bolen makes clear that there are dark and dangerous realms to traverse to learn how to help make oneself well and whole again. In her view, there is no mind/body split, no dichotomy between psyche and soma: the mind is everywhere in the body and affects physiological outcomes. While the book's Jungian tone will keep some readers away (even as it attracts others), and while it's not full of original ideas, it is a skillful assemblage of views on the harrowing experience of physical illness and mental dissociation from which we can and may emerge with a new clarity about who we are and what we want our lives to be.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

From a best-selling author (Goddesses in Everywoman, LJ 7/84): advice on making serious illness a chance for growth.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Scribner (April 3, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0684835304
• ISBN-13: 978-0684835303
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #334,508 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Jean Shinoda Bolen, M. D, is a psychiatrist, Jungian analyst, author and activist. an internationally known speaker who draws from spiritual, feminist, Jungian, medical and personal wellsprings of experience. She is a Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, UCSF clinical professor, and a former board member of the Ms. Foundation for Women.
Jean's website is www.jeanbolen.com. Lecture and workshops under "Current schedule."
She is the author of The Tao of Psychology, Goddesses in Everywoman, Gods in Everyman, Ring of Power, Crossing to Avalon, Close to the Bone, The Millionth Circle, Goddesses in Older Women, Crones Don't Whine and Urgent Message from Mother. Her books have been translated into over thiry foreign editions. All are in Spanish. She is a leading advocate for a UN 5th world conference on women (www.5wcw.org)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Must read for anyone coming to terms with loss and mortality, March 28, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Close to the Bone: Life Threatening Illness and the Search for Meaning (Paperback)

Once again, Jean Shinoda Bolen has gifted us with her rich understanding of the human condition. In this book, she explores the psychological and spiritual value of death, profound loss, and illness without in any way minimizing the pain, angusih, and grief that come with these times in our loves. Bolen's book gives us a way to grapple with these passages on a deep spiritual, personal level, without turning to religious platitudes or what, for many, may feel like true-believer gloss overs. Instead, dying, illness, and loss are presented as psychological as well as physical events that resonate with rich personal and spiritual meaning and transformation, if we can allow them to do this. A wonderful book!

24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Right Book at the Right Time, February 26, 2002

By 

Lisa (Toronto Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Close to the Bone: Life Threatening Illness and the Search for Meaning (Paperback)

This book is unlike any other I have read. The author is a Jungian analyst and clinical professor of psychiatry. To quote the book jacket, she "weaves myth, experience, and story to produce a book which at once illuminates the experience of the seriously ill patient and shows that facing one's mortality can be a life-transforming, and even a life-saving process". At a time when I was recovering from life-threatening illness myself, I heard the author speak at a lecture in Vancouver, and I found her use of classical myth as an allegory for illness to be quite effective. My friend Russell borrowed this book from me a few weeks before he died from cancer, and in a written note he described it as "the right book at the right time".

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Danger and Opportunity, February 16, 2001

By 

Mary R. Bast (Gainesville, Florida United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Close to the Bone: Life Threatening Illness and the Search for Meaning (Paperback)

Early in this beautiful book, Jean Shinoda Bolen reminds us that the Chinese pictograph for "crisis" contains the ideograms for both "danger" and "opportunity." I've worked with clients who deal with life-threatening illness, and it is almost invariably true that this experience raises important "soul-evoking" questions. To explore those questions is inevitably healing, whether in body, spirit, or both.

As with any major crisis in life, we can either view the glass as half-empty, or see the gift that we are offered: the opportunity to re-examine our priorities, our relationships, and to do the soul-work that brings true meaning to life. Illness forces us to deal with "what we know in our bones" that we may have so far denied -- ways in which we are unhappy and/or self-destructive.

And those of us who do not have life-threatening illness can learn from those who do. As Bolen points out, "Life is a terminal condition, after all." So we can all benefit from answering the questions she poses: "What are we here for... What did we come to learn... What and who did we come here to love?"