Consciousness and Healing: Integral Approaches to Mind-Body Medicine, 1e [Paperback]

Marilyn Schlitz PhD (Author), Tina Amorok (Author), Marc S. Micozzi MD PhD (Author), IONS (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 4, 2004 | ISBN-10: 0443068003 | ISBN-13: 978-0443068003 | Edition: Pap/DVD/CD

This collection of essays on integral medicine, consciousness, and healing integrates mainstream medical knowledge with recent developments in the emerging areas of frontier sciences and insights from alternative healing perspectives. It promotes a model of healing in which personal relationships, emotions, meaning, and belief systems are viewed as fundamental points of connection between body, mind, spirit, society, and nature. Integral medicine embraces the recognition that human beings possess emotional, spiritual, and relational dimensions that are essential in the diagnosis and treatment of disease and the cultivation of wellness.

Readers learn from the leaders in the emerging field of integral medicine and consciousness research, from the most well known (Deepak Chopra), to the frontline policy makers (James Gordon-one of the heads of the White House Commission on Conventional and Complementary and Alternative Medicine). Readers also gain insights from health professionals who have experienced healing within themselves and witnessed remarkable healing in their patients. We hear from other medical professionals (through the essays and the interviews on the accompanying DVD) who approach medicine from an array of cultural perspectives, and can attest to this multicultural, interdisciplinary, and participatory healing system in action. Consciousness and Healing contains 47 essays in the book plus 9 bonus essays read aloud on the DVD. Essays are short and in language suited to an audience of both lay and professional readers, with extensive references on the DVD to original scientific studies for those interested in further exploration.

• The most comprehensive and authoritative collection of work on the subject of healing.
• Joins subjective mind-body experiences with evidence-based research.
• Comprehensive view of healing as a complex system - something few texts do from such an interdisciplinary, multidimensional, and scientific perspective.
• The editors build on over 30 years of research in the area of mind-body medicine and consciousness
• The DVD packaged with this product contains 50 minutes of video interviews with many of the high-profile leaders who contribute to this book, as well as practitioners in the medical field who do not contribute to this book, but who do subscribe to its philosophy. It also contains 9 essays (read aloud) that are not in the book. References and the book's table of contents are on the DVD in Microsoft Word format.
• Essays are written in a conversational style allowing the thoughts of the contributors on the transformation of medicine to be projected in their own voice.
• Editors and contributors are on the forefront of the field of integrative medicine.
• Subject is timely; this book takes CAM one-step further by providing physicians with a vision for the future.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A comprehensive, enlightening, and humane look at how medicine can and must be expanded to integrate mind, body, and soul." -- Judith Orloff, M.D. Author, Guide to Intuitive Healing and Positive Energy

"An outstanding contribution." -- Wayne B. Jonas, M.D., Director, Samueli Institute for Information Biology Director (1995-1990), Office of Alternative Medicine, National Institute of Health

"Occasionally a book emerges as a crossroad of content and timing, to become a milestone in a field of literature." -- Mitchell W. Krucoff, MD, FACC, Associate Professor Medicine/Cardiology, Duke University Medical Center, Senior Editor, Journal of Alternative & Complementary Medicine

"This stunning collection of theories, research and new perspectives deserves to become the classic text in this fascinating field." -- Joan Borysenko, Ph.D. author of Minding the Body, Mending the Mind and Inner Peace for Busy People

About the Author

Marilyn Schlitz, PhD, Vice President of Research and Education, Institute of Noetic Sciences, Petaluma, California; Tina Amorok; IONS; and Marc S. Micozzi, MD, PhD, Director, Policy Institute for Integrative Medicine, Jefferson Medical College, Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia, PA; former Executive Director of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia

Product Details

• Paperback: 585 pages
• Publisher: Churchill Livingstone; Pap/DVD/CD edition (November 4, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0443068003
• ISBN-13: 978-0443068003
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 1 x 8.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #729,419 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

43 of 43 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Get This Book December 4, 2004

By Daryl Paulson

Format:Paperback

Now this is a good book. It consists of over 60 essays as well as a DVD with interviews. The book is partially directed at Ken Wilber's concept of integral medicine. Wilber is not a medical authority but an integral philosopher with many novel and important views. He considers integral medicine as a perspective that includes the patient's subjective world space (one's meaning, values, and world view), the patient's social relationships (shared meaning, values and aspirations) as well as the patient's physical condition (the focus of most Western medicine). Those of us who work in the field (mine clinical trials) will appreciate this expanded view. Ironically, each of the essayists to a large degree focus on only one of these three areas of existence. But then this is not a bad thing for each of these authors has something to contribute. It would probably be best to view Wilber's contribution, the Foreward, as a theoretical attempt to expand the concept of medicine. There are other contributors who are transpersonal and humanistic psychologists and provide a theoretical orientation adding much visionary value to this book. There are also a number of practicing clinicians who anchor the book with suggestions grounded in evidence based medicine. These include Michael Samuels, Dean Ornish, Rachel Remen, Deepak Chopra, and Larry Dosey, all both experienced clinicians and visionaries. Other outstanding researchers' essays included in this book are by Candace Pert, Jon Kabat-Zinn, David Levin, and Stephanie Simonton-Atchley. This book offers the researcher, the clinician, and the patient much material to take and from it, synthesize their own view in the crucible of life.

Daryl S Paulson Ph. D.

BioScience Laboratories Inc.

19 of 22 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Raising Awareness of the Nature of Healing June 1, 2005

By Cynthia Sue Larson TOP 1000 REVIEWER

Format:Paperback

CONSCIOUSNESS & HEALING is a remarkable collection of papers, articles and personal accounts of the current state of healing in the United States of America today. Sixty seven leading experts on health and healing share their most intimate, heartfelt, and analytical assessments of exactly what's going on in the field of mind-body medicine. Included inside this book is a companion DVD that features interviews with health professionals who share their vision for where the field of healing is headed.

CONSCIOUSNESS & HEALING is the brain and love child of the Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS), whose goal is to explore the frontiers of human consciousness. While the breadth and depth of this book defies description, it's safe to say that CONSCIOUSNESS & HEALING is currently the most comprehensive and up-to-date reference book on the subjects of complementary and alternative medicine, integral medicine, and mind-body medicine.

Some of my favorite ideas from this book are the notion of what it really means to grow old gracefully, the return of prayer, and the idea of the patient as being inextricably intertwined in society and the environment. Now that increasing numbers of patients seek complementary and alternative forms of healing to the more traditional chemical and surgical procedures, there is a need for the healing community to establish a better vision of how to treat patients as people who matter, and whose thoughts and feelings affect their health.

CONSCIOUSNESS & HEALING is a marvelous reference book that will stimulate discussion between healing professionals and people seeking healing, and help us all figure out what new model of health care we can best create.

18 of 21 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The Heart of the Matter December 28, 2004

By Doris Lora

Format:Paperback

"If I only had a heart," the tin man moans in "The Wizard of Oz" - all the while unaware of the compassion infusing his behavior. This is a book of over 60 healing experts who not only speak their science from compassionate hearts, but remind us that mainstream physicians also have hearts, yet are all too often prevented from practicing from that place by a system gone mad. Opening with Ken Wilber's brilliant introduction and Marilyn Schlitz's eloquent statement of the old/new concept of "integral medicine," my adrenaline was pumping within the first few pages. The spirit of the book models connection and cooperation with all health providers which oils the mechanism of courageous change. This compassionate attitude (careful observation of what works and what does not, as opposed to attacks) beautifully paves the new paradigm path with openness, humility and, yes, love. One is encouraged to step up to the uncertain experince of "a transformation of consciousness," a concept less daunting and decreasingly esoteric as explicated here with the variety of multi-cultural essays covering heartfelt personal experience, simple daily exercises and visionary goals - all carefully supported by mounds of empirical data. The powerful paradigm of "Integral Medicine" seems to suggest the need for an updated Hippocratic Oath. (Somehow, I believe Hoppocrates is cheering us on here.) Rather than "First, do no harm," how about "First, nurture the spirit"?