Love, Medicine & Miracles
By Bernie S. Siegel, M.D.
.
The creator of E Ca. P,
Exceptional Cancer
Patients and author of
Love, Medicine and Miracles ,
Dr. Bernie A. Siegel M.D integrates his cumulative knowledge and experience as a surgeon with human instinct. He reveals the body-mind connection as a determining factor in Cancer survival.
Enlisting a quote from Norman Cousins’ Anatomy of an
Illness:
“The will to live is not a theoretical abstraction, but a physiologic reality with therapeutic characteristics.”
Love, Medicine and Miracles argues convincingly that our survival from
life-threatening disease is influenced by what we think and feel.
Dr. Siegel states between 15 and 20 percent of patients whether consciously or unconsciously wish to die. For these individuals illness becomes an answer for life problems where no other has been found. At the other end of the spectrum and at about the same percentage are found exceptional patients. The majority being found between the two groups.
Often a difficult
Patient, Dr. Siegel’s exceptional patient is possessing of courage and an almost a stubborn refusal to relinquish control of their life even in the face of the most overwhelming odds. Exceptional patients are hungry for knowledge and won’t pay ransom to disease by sacrificing their identity or personal dignity in the battle.
Four questions begin to reveal a psychological profile of the patient and respective placement within the percentages: “Do you want to live to be a hundred? What happened in the one or two years preceding your illness? What does this illness mean to you? Why do you need this illness?” The answers speak volumes and provide a battle plan for living and, when necessary, dying.
Traditional therapies together with the less orthodox weapons like holistic approaches, meditation, prayer, imaging, dream exploration, stress management and life changes are all in the arsenal.
Can we always heal ourselves? Can we wish illness away? Not as either of those possibilities are traditionally understood. There is no minimizing of challenges faced in the battle against Cancer in Dr. Siegel’s book.
Casting the doctor in the role of mechanic with the patient as the healer, the trust between these two participants ideally becomes the foundation on which vital love and hope are supported. As helpful to doctors as it is to patients Dr. Siegel’s insights are precious. He clearly and certainly describes the partnership between doctor and patient as key. One of the profound truths in Love, Medicine and Miracles is that where there is no hope there is no will to live.
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