Complementary-Therapy Books

Simply outstanding book. Highly highly recommended for anyone interested in learning more about the therapeutic environment.

The Hakomi Method, created by Ron Kurtz, is a beautifully constructed experiential therapeutic process which incorporates the best of the last 100 or so years of psychotherapeutic study. It integrates Taoist and Buddhist Principles with Western Theory and the Body-Centered Wisdom of Alexander Lowen, John Pierrakos, Hector Prestera and others. I've been a therapist for over 16 years and the Hakomi Method has now become the main influence in my work. Ron's five principles: Mindfulness, Non-violence,Organicity, Unity and Mind-Body Wholism, insure not only change in a person's behavioral patterns, but in their soul as well. It is creative, effective and heartfelt. It is a pleasure to practice therapy this way. I highly recommend this book for anyone in the healing professions.

All I can say is, if you
don't have this book, it is well worth
the buy!
As a Massage Therapist and Energy Worker
I have often struggled with a way to explain
to my clients (without being to invasive)the Mindy/Body link,
especially if it is their first time being
"worked on" and they have had no prior experience
with Holistic Healing.

It has information on a wide range of ailments,aches and specific body language that helps the therapist to put into "everyday language" what the underlying cause may be linked to their client's dis-ease.
It also covers areas dealing with Quickening, Pre-birth,
Pre-conception and much more!
I find the author's explanations gentle but informative enough for my clients to begin to make the connection, which further
helps their healing process. Excellent, excellent book!
A must have for any Holistic Practitioner's Library!

I am so glad this book is available again. As a massage therapist and energy worker, people ask me all the time "What does a pain in this part of the body mean?" with this book I can tell them what energy or emotions are generally stored there. I have lent this book out over 20 times in the last 7 years. I am so thankful it is now available again for other people to buy. I have learned so much about how the words we say are connected to how we hold stress in our bodies. How a pain between the shoulder blades is often connected to unresolved relationship or career conflicts. People think I am physic when I ask them questions like "Did you feel like someone stabed you in the back around the time this pain started?" Then I lend them the book. I have found it very helpful in trama releases as well.

This book is used by my massage school as a support in the teaching of shiatsu. I found it extremely useful and helpful for someone who started learning about shiatsu. The book really goes into details about the origins and objectives of shiatsu, as well as the TCM (traditionnal chinese medicine). Half of the book focuses on theory (yin/yang, five elements, the meridians, the organs, the body fluids, the acupoints, then TCM...)the other half focuses on a shiatsu routine design for a first degree shiatsu treatment. I read it three times already. There is a lot to assimilate. Hopefully Mr Dubitsky will write a volume two and a volume three soon...

Hi, this book is wonderful! Written with the intent of combining the educational text book information but including pictures, diagrams and language that would enable one with no formal experience learn some shiatsu massage skills. I am working towards my massage therapy license and this book is a gem. I unfortunately bought this book from a store a and am kicking my-self for not going through Amazon.com, because I would have saved money. Oh well live and learn... ;-)

The Universal Dao system is the best system for westerners to learn this incredible art and the SAFEST; I stress the safest because this kind of training in no joke.

Nei kung (aka Iron Shirt III) teaches the practioner to breath through the bones and skin; drawing in an incredible amount of energy into the body for healing and regeneration. It is an advanced practice; if you are unfamiliar with qigong or starting out you need to learn the following; inner smile, healing sounds, microcosmic orbit; iron shirt 1; healing love and fusion; the reason being that if you have a lot of energy you need to now how to process it; recycle it; channel it and finally store it; otherwise the energy can make you very ungrounded, excessively sexually aroused (hence the need for healing love); even violent.

Master Chia, as always; presents his teachings with a loving and humble heart to help us back to the light and provide a more balanced way of life. I recommend this book for other practioners who have been training seriously for a few years or anyone who has an interest in the healing arts and wants a no nonsense guide.

I have a number of Mantak Chia's books and DVD's. As always, this book is no exception to this Master's ability to explain in detail the methods of practice involved in perfecting his art. Thanks to Masters like Mantak Chia, the practices of Taoism are available to the world. Thankyou.

Great book! Lot's of history on Kombucha. There are some pretty neat recipies for cooking with the brewed tea. The extremly detailed but easy to follow directions, complete with photos, make brewing your own tea a cinch. If you can't successfully brew your own tea with this book, you probably can't tie your own shoes either.

The ideas in The Book of Kombucha are so easy and a lot of fun! The recipes are especially fun to try. It's easy and fun to read! I reccommend anything from Beth Ann Petro Roybal.

Outstanding reference text for those interested in the REAL evidence for/against herbal medicine and botanical remedies. The authors provide detailed information on the history, traditional usage, laboratory evidence and clinical findings associated with dozens of herbals. The result is quite an exhaustive body of information that should serve as an authoritative reference text for any health practitioner or scientist with interest in this area. if you want to know more about botanical medicines, this is the book to get.

A modified version of one of the herbs discussed in this book, Astragalus, was featured as a CME (Continuing Medical Education) course for physicians in the International Journal of Integrative Medicine, which is nothing short of a stellar endorsement for the material found in this book. If you want the best in scientific and evidence-based information on herbal medicines, this authorative and well-researched text is the best choice for both doctors and the educated lay person. As a practicing doctor with over twenty years of clinical experience, multiple credentials in herbal medicine, the author of the book "Viral Immunity," and numerous academic papers on herbs, I highly recommend this book.

Braving the void clearly and vividly describes how our memories are not only stored in the brain, but are widely distributed throughout the body. This has important implications for illness, since post-traumatic stress disorders can be deeply stored within this body-mind memory system, and may be expressed as intractable symptoms such as chronic pain. This memory storage system may be viewed as a holographic field or pattern of energy. "Unblocking" the abnormal energy pattern can restore health by releasing the memories. During this process, the patient can enter a space termed the "void", where the abnormal patterns of consciousness are exposed and released.

Dr Greenwood uses various techniques such as acupuncture, forced breathing, kinesiology, and massage to release the memory patterns. He provides fascinating case histories of patients who were suffering from chronic pain, and other manifestations of ill health, being transformed back to wellness through manipulation of the body-mind systemic memory system.

This is an excellent book for healthcare professionals who wish to learn more than they were taught at medical or nursing schools, and for patients with chronic illness and pain secondary to past physical and psychological trauma. I highly recommend it.

BRAVING THE VOID
Journeys into Healing

Book review
By
Dr. Stephen J. Faulkner
Duncan, B.C.

For physicians and health care workers who are interested in Energy Healing and holistic approaches to health care, this book is a landmark work. Dr. Michael Greenwood's second book "Braving the Void - Journeys into Healing" is a well written, easy to read account of his experiences and insights as a physician and acupuncturist at the Victoria Pain Clinic.

Physicians in primary care reading this book will immediately resonate with some of his ideas on chronic pain and chronic illness. For example, the discussion of the doctor-patient relationship and the increasing trend of modern medicine to practice by protocols and algorithms using "evidence based" treatments is very relevant.

"To suggest one form of treatment is good for all people in all situations seems patently absurd, yet physicians have allowed fear to provoke them to abandon their inner strength and relinquish their authority when dealing with patients"

The concept of the void, which was initially developed in his first book, "Paradox and Healing", co-authored with Dr. Peter Nunn, is one that is best experienced to be appreciated and understood. Having experienced the void myself in therapeutic situations it is something I believe all holistic physicians and healers must experience and enter into periodically to be fully aware of what is happening both for themselves and their patients. Michael Greenwood has embraced this belief and, together with his other staff members, has developed a model for energy healing for conditions as diverse as chronic back pain and chronic fatigue, to breast cancer and multiple personality disorder. Other areas I found extremely interesting were the case histories on phantom limb pain, electrical burns and shamanic possessions.

Dealing with these "energies" can be extremely fatiguing and at times frightening, and Dr. Greenwood has been very modest about his experiences. He should be considered the James Cook of the human psyche, beginning to chart new continents and oceans of human energy, which have been previously "Terra Incognito" to western minds. His medical training is the navigational equipment required to prevent him landing on the rocks and his skills as a humane physician and acupuncturist the gift that provides safety through the gale-force winds and ocean storms.

This kind of work, dealing with chronic pain and the failures of so many other "so called" orthodox treatments also brings up the shadow work that a healthy society must engage in for its survival. As Michael suggests, our health care system is all too ready to focus on the "light" and "positive" aspects of our culture but reluctant to approach the "dark" or "negative" aspects. This is not the kind of work for the faint-hearted. A willingness to explore one's own shadow side and belief system is essential if one is going to navigate the unpalatable places of the client's psyche. Fortunately for us, there are pioneers like Michael Greenwood who are giving us frameworks to work with such as the void from which we can springboard into the unconscious material that lies stored in the body/mind continuum.

I would thoroughly recommend this book to all health care professionals involved in holistic and energy healing.

The one word that can ruin your day, actually ruin your life is Cancer. My wife and I are fighting and I mean fighting! We are very careful who we talk to and what we read and listen to. This book is for fighters. If your fight currently involves that nasty word (cancer), get this book and strengthen your fight. Also check out the Oasis of Hope Hospital and Cancer Treatment Centers of America. Keep Fighting!

This book is perhaps the most important book written on cancer in the twentieth century. This is because Josef Issels demonstrated in his Cancer Clinic in Bavaria the most successful results ever achieved with late stage cancer patients (16.6% five-year survival and 15% fifteen-year survival - more than 5 times better than any orthodox therapy before or since.
Recent evidence continues to question the current paradigm that cancer is a local disease that later spreads. Issels instead saw cancer as a systemic disease that in its later stages showed observable symptoms, the tumours. Treating the tumours was therefore a waste of time unless the cause was tackled. He saw the causes as many, including physical, emotional and spiritual so he tackled all possibilities with dedication and a caring approach. The only contributing factor he apprently underestimated was the emotions. Four well-run randomised trials have since shown that simply tackling the emotional causes can have dramatic results, typically 50-70% increased survival times. But his Wholebody-therapy he used in the 1960s has still not been matched by any of the other alternative cancer therapists since. The book gives a history of the treatment of cancer over the past few thousands of years and goes into a lot of well-documented factors that make up his total treatment. For those who want to understand the cancer process this book is essential reading.

This book is truly groundbreaking! Not since Don Juan of Carlos Castaneda has the science of the Assemblage Point been presented so clearly. The case studies presented in this book show that this treatment can very well be the next major health care method of the 21st century. I just hope that the world is aware enough to embrace such a revolutionary practice.

If you have any interest in the Assemblage Point or Electronic Gem Lamp Therapy (80+% effective healing rate of "uncureable disease") be sure to read this book. If unavailable look up Jon Whale's Assemblage Point website.

PLUS, his new ebook will be out Spring of 2006!

Remarkable book with the groundbreaking new information for the new millenium. The assemblage point information is the greatest medical discovery of the last 100 years, and coupled with electronic gem medicine offers new hope and insight that makes drug medicine, especially for mental illness, seem like stone age medicine.

john

I haven't had time to read the whole book of course but reading through a few pages here and there I find it extremely informative. I once read a negative criticism about the author but ofcourse everyone is entitled to there opinion. In my case I find this book very informative. I've been looking for a book that goes into more detail about the Eight Xtra-ordinary vessels and this book is it. Ofcourse I will continue my search on the uses because most successful practioners I have met stress the impotance of this understanding.

This book answers countless questions I had while in school,demystifies how acupoints create their effects and has improved my treatment design hugely. After reading the Table of Contents and sampling sections of the book I decided to read it from cover to cover. I know its expensive but its a lot cheaper than a single 3 semester hour course and contains the knowledge of several courses.