Paradox Publishing
Book Review
by Dr. Leslie Arden Foote in 1998
Amazon.com
For anyone in the healing arts who ponders and struggles with patients and their chronic diseases, this is a must read. Both authors re-evaluate the dilemma of chronic illness and pain from a holistic standpoint.
Western medicine has fared poorly when it comes to chronic problems which is frustrating for both "healer" and "patient". However, by reframing the approach to sickness, chronic disease can be viewed as a transformational process. Disease and healing, the authors contend, are one in the same. Conventional medicine fails to acknowledge the emotional side of disease because of its “irrationality”. We only recognize the “structural” aspects of disease because of its inherent rationality. Unfortunately the most perplexing problems in medicine cannot be adequately dealt with by the rational approach alone. As a society, though, approaching from the irrational standpoint is taboo. By embracing both the rational and irrational, patients can begin the personal transformation necessary to heal themselves, a concept quite foreign to the conventional practitioner.
To quote the authors: “Transformation is a profound change of heart made possible by the renewed sense of being which comes from facing the paradoxical nature of our existence.” In order to illustrate the concept of transformation, the authors drawn upon myths. Unlike other teaching tools, myths provide a venue for the irrational to interact with the rational. This offers a valuable opportunity to evaluate the functional and structural aspects of illness. For the western trained mind this book can be a revelation but for some it will certainly be considered heretical. This book matches crisp insight with a fervent mission to challenge even the most “holy” of western medical beliefs.
Dr. Leslie Arden Foote: Family Physician in Blue Lake, CA, USA