Imagery in Healing: Shamanism and Modern Medicine [Paperback]

Jeanne Achterberg (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 12, 1985

Combining the practices of the earliest healers with the latest data from modern medicine, this comprehensive work shows how the systematic use of mental imagery can help patients through painful events.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A real landmark in holistic medical studies. For those of us—and there are more of us all the time—who think it is time to take responsibility for ourselves and our well-being, this is exciting stuff."—Frena Bloomfield, San Francisco Chronicle Review



"I would encourage both laypersons and professionals to read Imagery in Healing to understand how one's belief can physiologically affect the human body."—Charles P. Ledergerber, M.D., Journal of the American Medical Association --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

From the Inside Flap

Combining the practices of the earliest healers with the latest data from modern medicine, this comprehensive work shows how the systematic use of mental imagery can help patients through painful events.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 264 pages
• Publisher: Shambhala (April 12, 1985)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0394730313
• ISBN-13: 978-0394730318
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,768,853 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Very good, December 3, 2005

By 

Massimo Maddaloni "Maddmax1" (Bozeman, MT United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Imagery in Healing: Shamanism and Modern Medicine (Paperback)

This book is actually a composite of two different concepts, which the author doesn't link to each other in a clear manner.
The section "shamanism in modern medicine" is poorly written. Most psychologists (like the author) hold that everything encountered in altered states of mind actually happens in the mind. Some Jungian psychologists softened this approach by postulating the existence of archetypal symbols. Conversely, shamans across the world and across millennia hold that there are parallel universes that are inhabited by independent spirits who may, and do, interact with this world. Who should we believe to, the scholars or the ... people in the business? Regardless, Achterberg completely disregards the "other" point of view and, in so doing, she fails to deliver objective information.
On the other hand, the section about mental imagery and healing is truly excellent. Self healing is a phenomenon that cannot be possibly denied, the placebo effect being the prove of that. The author explores the possible connections between imagery, the nervous system and the immune system. Most of what she says makes perfect sense, although current scientific evidence is not sufficient to support her thesis. The author points out that there is a strong economic pressure against research in this field, and she is perfectly right. Anyone working for a pharmaceutical company (a tremendously powerful lobby) would never, ever look favorably to research aimed to prove that the mind CAN heal the body.

31 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars scientific evidence for how imagination heals, September 5, 1999

By 

Ruth Henriquez Lyon (Duluth, Minnesota USA) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Imagery in Healing: Shamanism and Modern Medicine (Paperback)

This author successfully combines traditional scientific scholarship with an open-minded approach to complementary modes of healing such as shamanism, visualization, and energy work. She provides the experimental evidence that explains how images we hold in our minds really do effect changes on the physical level--it has to do with how the "imaging" part of the brain connects to brain structures which regulate hormones and the immune system. There is also a fascinating section on the wise-women healers of Europe and how they were persecuted for practicing medicine which went against established medical practice as well as against the Church. It seems the ancient healers were on to something that became suppressed, and which is now being rediscovered by scholars as well as healing practitioners.......The author is professor of psychology at the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology. Thus, she knows well how to use reductionist scientific methods as a tool while still seeing the possibilities lying beyond reductionism in the transpersonal plane.

26 of 42 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Unfortunately not Scientific Enough, March 9, 2002

By 

Arlie Stephens (Sunnyvale, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Imagery in Healing: Shamanism and Modern Medicine (Paperback)

I had high hopes for this book. A lot of modern books on shamanism are written by modern practitioners from non-shamanic cultures, for the consumption of other would be practitioners. A few more interesting ones are written by social scientists of various types, such as anthropologists; these tend to be a lot more accurate and interesting to me. And some are written by people who are experimenting with applying shamanic techniques in modern western settings, and reporting on what they've tried, and what results it's had.

I'd hoped this was one of the latter category. It may still be, but I'm having trouble reading it. The author states a large number of things as unquestioned fact which are neither unquestioned nor fact. For example, she clearly believes in European witches as being both shamans (medieval Europe was not a shamanic culture) and cultural survivals of Celtic priestesses. She also seems to be citing Michael Harner as her primary anthropological source, along with Mircea Eliade (good, as far as he went), and Carlos Castenada (usually believed to have invented his "data"). She also presumes some interesting common knowledge; I was amused to see her alluding to the "Medicine Wheel of Western civilization" as having "looked to the North for too long now, having much knowledge but little feeling." (What kind of audience is she writing for, if she presumes they are familiar with the 4 European elements, and their reinterpretation in a quasi Native-American context?)

I've seen worse. She's not quoting information channeled from Atlantean Grand Masters, or insisting that "science" will "prove" her favourite religious dogmas. But I'm still having a lot of trouble getting past the first couple of chapters, to see whether she has any useful information, such as reports on what she's been doing, and how or whether people are actually being healed by it.