Choices in Healing: Integrating the Best of Conventional and Complementary Approaches to Cancer

(Paperback)

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Written by one of the country's leading authorities on alternative and complementary cancer treatments, Choices in Healing is designed for the cancer patient or health professional who seeks a comprehensive overview of the available choices, both in treatments and in living with cancer.Choices in Healing offers valuable information and guidance for the whole life cycle of cancer-from the initial shock of diagnosis to decisions about choosing a physician and conventional therapies, selecting complementary therapies, coping with treatment, and the art of living fully with the possibility of recurrence. There are detailed explanations and evaluations of a wide range of complementary therapy programs, including spiritual and psychological approaches, nutritional therapies, physical therapies, pharmacological therapies, and traditional medicines from around the world. There are sections on prayer and other forms of spiritual healing; psychotherapy, support groups, visual imagery and hypnosis; massage, therapeutic touch, yoga, and Qi Gong; macrobiotic diet and other cancer diets; acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicines; and numerous other unconventional therapies used by American cancer patients. With an unusual combination of compassion and objectivity, Michael Lerner describes his conclusions following more than a decade of study of unconventional cancer treatments in North America, Europe, India, and Japan. He also draws extensively on his work with hundreds of cancer patients who have participated in the Commonweal Cancer Help Programs, the residential support program depicted by Bill Moyers in his 1993 PBS documentary Healing and the Mind.

Reviews

"Here we have a truly remarkable book. Unlike anything in thealternative literature, Choices in Healing gives ascrupulously nonjudgemental review of the world of alternativetreatments for cancer. Michael Lerner is a talented, scientificallyastute and well-educated individual... His compilation of bothorthodox and alternative approaches to cancer is superb...This is essential reading." Karol Sikora , New Scientist "A bridge that many skeptics can at least approach. The textis both critical and hopeful toward both conventional andcomplementary methods of therapy. Physicans will certainly findthis book, with its in-depth index and extensive appendixed resourceguide, the best single available source if they are willingto explore this area." John M. Merrill , M.D., Journal of the American Medical Association "I urge anyone dealing with cancer to read Michael Lerner"s excellent book." Andrew Weil M.D., author of Spontaneous Healing and Natural Health, Natural Medicine, and many other books.