Based on astonishing case studies, this is a brilliant and beautifully written follow-up to Dr Doidge’s record-breaking bestseller The Brain That Changes Itself. In his first book, Norman Doidge described the most important development in our understanding of the brain in four hundred years: the discovery that the brain can change its own structure and function in response to mental experience — what we call neuroplasticity. Now The Brain’s Way of Healing shows how this amazing discovery really works, significantly broadening the field from traumatic brain injury to all manner of diseases and conditions in which brain functioning is a factor — including multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease, epilepsy, cerebral palsy, and dementia. He describes how patients have retrained their brains and learned to walk, speak, or hear, while others have reset the brain’s energy patterns and circuits to overcome or reduce chronic pain or alleviate anxiety, trauma, learning disorders, and many other impairing syndromes. As he did so lucidly in The Brain That Changes Itself, Norman Doidge presents exciting, cutting-edge science with practical real-world applications, and illustrates how anyone can apply the principles of neuroplasticity to improve their brain’s performance.
In this inspiring book, based on her twenty years of research, highly acclaimed author and teacher Louise DeSalvo reveals the healing power of writing. DeSalvo shows how anyone can use writing as a way to heal the emotional and physical wounds that are an inevitable part of life. Contrary to what most self-help books claim, just writing won't help you; in fact, there's abundant evidence that the wrong kind of writing can be damaging. DeSalvo's program is based on the best available and most recent scientific studies about the efficacy of using writing as a restorative tool. With insight and wit, she illuminates how writers, from Virginia Woolf to Henry Miller to Audre Lorde to Isabel Allende, have been transformed by the writing process. Writing as a Way of Healing includes valuable advice and practical techniques to guide and inspire both experienced and beginning writers.
"Wonderful... Physicans would do well to learn this most important lesson about caring for patients." —The New York Times Book Review Over the years that Victoria Sweet has been a physician, “healthcare” has replaced medicine, “providers” look at their laptops more than at their patients, and costs keep soaring, all in the ruthless pursuit of efficiency. Yet the remedy that economists and policy makers continue to miss is also miraculously simple. Good medicine takes more than amazing technology; it takes time—time to respond to bodies as well as data, time to arrive at the right diagnosis and the right treatment. Sweet knows this because she has learned and lived it over the course of her remarkable career. Here she relates unforgettable stories of the teachers, doctors, nurses, and patients through whom she discovered the practice of Slow Medicine, in which she has been both pioneer and inspiration. Medicine, she helps us to see, is a craft and an art as well as a science. It is relational, personal, even spiritual. To do it well requires a hard-won wisdom that no algorithm can replace—that brings together “fast” and “slow” in a truly effective, efficient, sustainable, and humane way of healing.
Heal Your Way Forward is a seminal work in antiracism, guiding white and white-identifying folks to utilize activism for intergenerational healing. In 2018, myisha t hill created the @ckyourprivilege handle on Instagram to undo the harm created between white women and women of the Global Majority. After years of living in the micro- and macro-aggressions of white culture, myisha was tired of staying silent. But she wanted to do more than fight back—she wanted to heal forward. "myisha t hill is a rare educator who comes from a place of compassion and profound emotional insight. She is leading a revolution of mind, heart, and soul, one that she now continues in her highly anticipated book, Heal Your Way Forward. myisha's work changes how we experience the world by helping us understand our place within it. This book shows anyone interested in human liberation the way to heal, to hope, and to become true advocates and co-conspirators — not just for justice and change, but for the future of who we are as humans." — Anna Paquin, Actress and Producer In just over three short years, Check Your Privilege and myisha's personal platform have amassed more than 750K followers on Instagram and became hubs for interracial activism during the Great White Awakening of 2020. But like many antiracism activists, myisha saw the activism abate after the election of President Biden. Heal Your Way Forward: The Co-Conspirator's Guide to an Antiracist Future is the trumpet call to white and white-identifying folks, guiding them to recognize their antiracism work as intergenerational healing. In her first major book, myisha asks the most critical question of antiracism work: what do we want the world to look like in seven generations? This book is her answer, but also, it's a tactical, practical guide for learning (and unlearning), healing (and feeling through the hurt), and committing (and recommitting) to real change and a reparative future. This is the book myisha's 750,000 followers have been waiting for—a marriage of personal story, antiracist handbook, and an emotional plea to all people to be the change today so we can heal the world for tomorrow. In this seminal work, myisha offers readers the ultimate reason to engage in activism—to create a better world not just for our babies, but for our babies' babies—and a clear strategy to change the future and nature of interracial activism by: Sustaining the great white awakening by discovering the sweet spot of shame and vulnerability Making room for white tears Developing radical listening and lifelong learning Practicing the great act of recommittment And building a reparative future As myisha shares, the more you fail forward, the more you heal your way forward, and the better we can heal the future together. myisha t hill is a mental health activist, speaker, and entrepreneur passionate about mental wellness and empowerment for all. She runs the advocacy site Check Your Privilege with more than 700K followers on Instagram. Additionally, myisha works with organizations and community groups taking white people on a self-reflective journey to explore their relationship with power, privilege, and racism.
Today’s medicine is spiritually deflated and morally adrift; this book explains why and offers an ethical framework to renew and guide practitioners in fulfilling their profession to heal. What is medicine and what is it for? What does it mean to be a good doctor? Answers to these questions are essential both to the practice of medicine and to understanding the moral norms that shape that practice. The Way of Medicine articulates and defends an account of medicine and medical ethics meant to challenge the reigning provider of services model, in which clinicians eschew any claim to know what is good for a patient and instead offer an array of “health care services” for the sake of the patient’s subjective well-being. Against this trend, Farr Curlin and Christopher Tollefsen call for practitioners to recover what they call the Way of Medicine, which offers physicians both a path out of the provider of services model and also the moral resources necessary to resist the various political, institutional, and cultural forces that constantly push practitioners and patients into thinking of their relationship in terms of economic exchange. Curlin and Tollefsen offer an accessible account of the ancient ethical tradition from which contemporary medicine and bioethics has departed. Their investigation, drawing on the scholarship of Leon Kass, Alasdair MacIntyre, and John Finnis, leads them to explore the nature of medicine as a practice, health as the end of medicine, the doctor-patient relationship, the rule of double effect in medical practice, and a number of clinical ethical issues from the beginning of life to its end. In the final chapter, the authors take up debates about conscience in medicine, arguing that rather than pretending to not know what is good for patients, physicians should contend conscientiously for the patient’s health and, in so doing, contend conscientiously for good medicine. The Way of Medicine is an intellectually serious yet accessible exploration of medical practice written for medical students, health care professionals, and students and scholars of bioethics and medical ethics.
Don't Waste Your Pain None of us escapes the heartache and disappointments of life. To live is to hurt, and we all have the wounds to prove it. Regardless of how we've been hurt, we all face a common question: What should we do with our pain? Should we stoically ignore it? Should we just "get over it"? Should we optimistically hope that everything will work out in the end? If we fail to respond appropriately to the wounds that life and relationships inflict, our pain will be wasted; it will numb us or destroy us. But suffering doesn't have to mangle our hearts and rob us of joy. It can, instead, lead us to life--if we know the path to healing. Healing is not the resolution of our past; it is the use of our past to draw us into deeper relationship with God and his purposes for our lives. If you're ready to shape a future characterized by love, service, and joy, now is the time to step out onto The Healing Path.
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.
“Fascinating. Doidge’s book is a remarkable and hopeful portrait of the endless adaptability of the human brain.”—Oliver Sacks, MD, author of The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat What is neuroplasticity? Is it possible to change your brain? Norman Doidge’s inspiring guide to the new brain science explains all of this and more An astonishing new science called neuroplasticity is overthrowing the centuries-old notion that the human brain is immutable, and proving that it is, in fact, possible to change your brain. Psychoanalyst, Norman Doidge, M.D., traveled the country to meet both the brilliant scientists championing neuroplasticity, its healing powers, and the people whose lives they’ve transformed—people whose mental limitations, brain damage or brain trauma were seen as unalterable. We see a woman born with half a brain that rewired itself to work as a whole, blind people who learn to see, learning disorders cured, IQs raised, aging brains rejuvenated, stroke patients learning to speak, children with cerebral palsy learning to move with more grace, depression and anxiety disorders successfully treated, and lifelong character traits changed. Using these marvelous stories to probe mysteries of the body, emotion, love, sex, culture, and education, Dr. Doidge has written an immensely moving, inspiring book that will permanently alter the way we look at our brains, human nature, and human potential.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Nobel Peace Prize winner, Chair of The Elders, and Chair of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, along with his daughter, the Reverend Mpho Tutu, offer a manual on the art of forgiveness—helping us to realize that we are all capable of healing and transformation. Tutu's role as the Chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission taught him much about forgiveness. If you asked anyone what they thought was going to happen to South Africa after apartheid, almost universally it was predicted that the country would be devastated by a comprehensive bloodbath. Yet, instead of revenge and retribution, this new nation chose to tread the difficult path of confession, forgiveness, and reconciliation. Each of us has a deep need to forgive and to be forgiven. After much reflection on the process of forgiveness, Tutu has seen that there are four important steps to healing: Admitting the wrong and acknowledging the harm; Telling one's story and witnessing the anguish; Asking for forgiveness and granting forgiveness; and renewing or releasing the relationship. Forgiveness is hard work. Sometimes it even feels like an impossible task. But it is only through walking this fourfold path that Tutu says we can free ourselves of the endless and unyielding cycle of pain and retribution. The Book of Forgiving is both a touchstone and a tool, offering Tutu's wise advice and showing the way to experience forgiveness. Ultimately, forgiving is the only means we have to heal ourselves and our aching world.
A woman faced with advanced cancer shares the story of how preparing to die led her to experience a profound healing on all levels--physical, emotional, and spiritual. • Explores the practical and spiritual aspects of confronting a life challenge as a springboard for spiritual growth. • Includes accounts of dreams, exercises, and visualizations that inspire profound healing. • Outlines 12 self-help practices of wellness--emotional clearing, meditations, and lifestyle changes--through the living example of a cancer survivor. • By the co-compiler of the spiritual classic Peace Pilgrim: Her Life and Work in Her Own Words. At the age of 41 Cheryl Canfield was diagnosed with advanced cervical cancer. Going against warnings from doctors, she rejected proposed surgeries that would involve removing her uterus, cervix, lymph nodes, and surrounding nerves. Instead, she decided to accept death and focused her energy on attempting to die well. In the process, she cured herself. Profound Healing is Canfield's down-to-earth account of her journey as she inadvertently experiences a modern-day miracle, and her subsequent reflections on physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual healing. More than a biography, Canfield's story contains exercises, dreams, visualizations, and experiences--from encounters with the modern mystic Peace Pilgrim to her own acceptance of cancer--that assisted her healing process. Others can use her hard-earned insights as a source of hope, inspiration, and practical advice. Relevant to anyone seeking personal growth and life wisdom, Profound Healing is not merely about dying or living. It is about discovering one's life and living it fully while here.
