A Path To Healing: A Guide To Wellness For Body, Mind and Soul [Hardcover]

Andrea Sullivan (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 13, 1998

Twenty years ago, at age twenty-nine, Andrea Sullivan was a high-level executive at HUD in a state of what she now calls "dis-ease": stressed out, thirty-pounds overweight, with a face full of acne. Moved by a desire to help her community and herself in a "meaningful way," she quit her job and decided to become a doctor. She applied and was accepted to Bastyr Medical School for Alternative Medicine and became a naturopathic physician.



Since then, Dr. Sullivan has been at the vanguard of naturopathic medicine and has helped hundreds of African Americans create dramatic and lasting lifestyle changes. Unlike traditional doctors, naturopathic physicians, with the aid of herbs, roots, and other natural remedies, treat the patient, not the disease.



Here, in easy-to-understand language, Dr. Sullivan provides an overview of alternative medicine (paying close attention to naturopathy), discusses the African American tradition and its link to naturopathic medicine, and delves into stress, high blood pressure, arthritis, obesity, depression, and diabetes (all problems that plague African Americans), and prescribes an overall guide to maintaining health and keeping disease at bay.



In A Path to Healing, Dr. Sullivan makes a convincing case for naturopathic medicine as the best way to prevent disease and treat chronic illnesses, while not discounting the use of traditional Western medicine, especially in cases of traumatic injury.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Sullivan is a naturopathic physician who uses a combination of nutrition, herbs, homeopathy, acupuncture, hydrotherapy, exercise and massage to "heal people, not diseases." She supplies detailed nutritional advice here, including her "ten-day detoxification diet" for beginning a healthier lifestyle, and blood-type diets for maintenance (for example, type As, she explains, tend to be analytical and anxious, and should be vegetarian). Through many specific case studies, Sullivan reveals that another large part of her practice is listening to her patients talk about themselves. Feelings of low self-worth, she contends, are at the root of many physical ailments, and learning of her patients' abusive relationships, bad childhoods or everyday stresses help her design an appropriate treatment for each individual. Sullivan, who is African American, claims that naturopathy works for everyone "regardless of color," but she focuses on "the most common and most damaging ailments that plague black America," including hypertension, diabetes, obesity, arthritis, addictions, HIV/AIDS and cancer. She also delivers a long diatribe on racism in "white America" and charges the CIA with developing and distributing HIV "for the purpose of reducing the world population, especially people of color." These ill-advised comments seem to contradict her "we are all children of God... one people" references, and may turn off readers to what is otherwise an unusual and provocative addition to the crowded shelf of wellness guides.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"This [book] is a treasure."
--Iyanla Vanzant, Author of In the Meantime

"Dr. Sullivan has captured the essence of holistic health for all Americans."
--Robert S. Ivker, D.O., President of the American Holistic Medical Association, author of Sinus Survival

"Dr. Sullivan is truly a pioneer in alternative medicine. Wise, informative and practical, A Path to Healing is a map to wellness that will guide us into the new millennium."
--Tavis Smiley, "BET Tonight" and "The Tom Joyner Morning Show"

"A Path to Healing is a powerful and compelling guide that transcends the merely physical to also deeply engage the reader in the emotional and spiritual determinants of their health."
--Joseph E. Pizzorno, N.D., founding president of Bastyr University, author of Total Wellness, coauthor of the bestselling  Encyclopedia of Natural Medicine


From the Trade Paperback edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Doubleday; 1st edition (April 13, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385485751
• ISBN-13: 978-0385485753
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,521,894 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Intelligent, Insightful, A True Gem., October 5, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: A Path To Healing: A Guide To Wellness For Body, Mind and Soul (Hardcover)

I have always had a passion for studying the holistic approach to traditional medicine. Most of the books I find are a little to SciFi for me to enjoy. Dr. A. Sullivan, does it remarkably well, she let's you know that she is an average women who make the necessary changes to create her present goal. She's in touch with the human side. Because of her, for the first time after so many books on holistic care I have taken the step and what a difference it has made. Also thanks to Dr. Sullivan I am packing my bags for Bastyr in January. Go ahead buy it make the changes you'll be glad you did.

1 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Naturopathic Vitalistic Spiritistic Woo-Woo:, May 6, 2007

By 

Robert J. Cullen "'Dr. Bob Ironic'" (Bridgeport, CT) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Path to Healing: A Guide to Wellness for Body, Mind, and Soul (Paperback)

And I quote from this book: "this attitude about wellness comes from our basic naturopathic beliefs, based on principles of vitalism [p.020...] vitalism maintains that life is more than a complex series of chemical and physical reactions. It relies on the belief that there is a soul, that which makes us breathe, that coordinates and organizes these reactions. This force, or vitalism, allows an organism to develop, reproduce, and repair itself [p.021...] Dr. Hahnemann and the vital force. The term 'the healing power of nature' (vis medicatrix naturae) [...] more than any other healing art of naturopathic medicine, homeopathy is founded upon this philosophy [...] at the core of this philosophy is vitalism [...] the belief that there is an unknowable inner essence, an energy which animates everything we call life. It is the individualized spirit, the vital force, the soul. The soul is the force [p.051...] vitalism: a philosophy at the core of naturopathy and homeopathy, holding that life is more than a series of biochemical reactions; but rather life, and all of the reactions that sustain life, is coordinated and organized by a force or spirit [p.256]." The author is a graduate of Bastyr University, an institution that states naturopathy's vitalism and spiritism {and kind} are "science." Such a claim is patently untrue, thus my low rating.