Spontaneous Healing : How to Discover and Embrace Your Body's Natural Ability to Maintain and Heal Itself

The thesis of the book is that the medical profession only concerns itself with disease. Medical schools teach nothing about prevention or about the ability for the body to heal itself. It's not against medical care but tells many ways we can encourage our body's immune systems to help us heal. The author is a Harvard Medical school graduate. He has one chapter near the end of the book titled Cancer as a Special Case. Throughout the book he mentions the pessimistic stance of many doctors who predict the worst - which of course can affect the mind and body of the patient usually in a negative way. I highly recommend this book. The case studies of miraculous healings are amazing and he has many helpful ideas which can boost immunity.

Well written and articulate, comprehensive book applicable even more so today as people are taking responsibility for their own health and healing. Encouraging and hopeful for anyone tired of the same old options from allopathic medicine.

FULL DISCLOSURE - I have lymphoma and have been a patient of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center for over three years, including a five month chemotherapy regimen. Besides being the author of this book, which is sub-titled "How to Enhance Your Body's Natural Ability to Maintain and Heal Itself", who is Andrew Weil? Well, he's a Harvard graduate (Botany) and Harvard medical school graduate, did an internship and then basically dropped out of the standard or orthodox medical field. Spent the next twenty years or so traipsing around the world talking with various shamans, Chinese herbalists, gurus, etc. And he's gotten to be a very influential guy. He has been a big proponent of natural therapies for the healing of maladies. While not opposed to allopathic or conventional medicine, Weil heavily criticizes the establishment for emphasizing "disease and it's treatment, rather than health and it's maintenance" (P. 65). He emphasizes natural healing and a variety of alternative therapies. In Weil's view, the body heals itself, it is a "healing system." And the healing system is a functional system, "not an assemblage of structures that can be neatly diagrammed" (P. 65). Of course this is a point that has been noted by many people, and is obvious to anyone who thinks about it. If you get a cut, the cut heals itself. My son's currently broken ankle will mend itself; he has a cast on simply to protect the ankle from further damage. The cast doesn't heal the break. And the overwhelming opinion is that most cancers heal themselves; our immune system is constantly destroying abnormal cells before they get to any size or we know they are there. Weil makes a point (P. 110) that "Treatment originates outside you. Healing comes from within." The book is 280 pages long and divided into three parts. The first section is entitled "The Healing System" and is filled with stories and cases of people who were healed by alternative therapies. Herbs, acupuncture, aromatherapy, certain forms of classic osteopathic medicine, visualization, mind-body interactions, stuff like that. The second and third sections are entitled "Optimizing the Healing System" - what to do to maintain good health - and "If you get sick". Weil lays out a variety of programs of preventive care. Much of it pretty basic like don't smoke and go for relaxing walks. And then stuff like using tonics and vitamins. The last section is a bit encyclopedic with short sections on various alternative approaches - Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), Ayurvedic medicine, imagery and visualization therapy, chiropractic, on and on. What about cancer? Weil points to the three standard therapies, surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation, with strong reservations on the latter two. Too much of a bludgeon approach, with chemotherapy especially having possible deleterious effects on other body systems. He suggests that the ultimate "cure" for cancer will come when we figure out how to "turn on" the immune system to attack and destroy the cancer cells, which somehow escaped or inoculated themselves from the body's immune system. As mentioned above, the standard opinion now is that most cancers develop due to an immune system failure. I think his opinion on the ultimate cancer cure is pretty much the standard opinion in the conventional medical establishment. Of course the whole problem with Weil's approaches - diet, herbs, aromatherapy, "healing touch", is that there is scarcely any real scientific evidence for the efficacy of any of these approaches. It's all anecdotal. Where are the double blind studies, the comparisons between groups - all the studies that can lend credence to the anecdotes? Weil admits there aren't many studies, and urges the studies be done. And as one of my physicians said to me, "There are no scientific studies. On the other hand, 2,000 years of Traditional Chinese Medicine has to have something to it." As you can imagine, Weil has some really strident critics in the medical fraternity. No sense going there in this review. What do I think? Well, Weil is not just another New Age Wacko. Not that I'll be trading my Sloan Kettering doctors for aromatherapy any time soon. BUT I have started taking an immune system support capsule that Weil recommends (I figure it can't hurt - got it at Shoprite) as well as taking glucosamine chondroitin three times a day for my joints, rather then just the occasional pill.

Great

This book was incredibly inspiring and encouraging on my path to recovery from chronic pain. It's worthy of 5 stars and I agree with 99% of what Dr. Weil says. I will offer one recommendation for reading this book: Don't let the 2nd half undermine what he says in the 1st half. The 2nd half gets very detailed about diet and herbs, and while I believe most of it has merit (I'm not so sure about the electromagnetic paranoia), the 1st half of this book is equally if not more important! I emphasize this because it's so easy for a reader to finish the book and say, "Ok, I need to do this, this, and this with my diet", all the while continuing on with a high-stress lifestyle and manner of thinking. Pay close attention to the stories of spontaneous healing in the first half, because it's always the change of THINKING and belief that catalyzed the patient's drastic recovery, and the diet part is supplemental. I also highly recommend Dr. Sarno's book The Mindbody Prescription. I am currently reading The Mayo Clinic Guide to Stress-Free Living by Dr. Sood which is endorsed by Dr. Weil and has some merit as well.

Love this book it is so informative!!! I have learned a lot from reading it! I tried the bloodroot salve on a couple of skin Lumps that I've had for 10 or more years and the salve worked just like I read! I hate going to doctors, I personally rather try healing my body without the side effects of all the pharmaceutical drugs.

I like the idea behind his book, but I found the dietary recommendations to be very out of date (low fat, saturated fat is the enemy). In checking his website, these recommendations don't seem to have been updated despite overwhelming research to the contrary. Otherwise, it was an encouraging read and I especially enjoy the breathing techniques.

I read this book 18 years ago (date of last copyright) and loved it. I bought this copy for $0.01 plus shipping for my co-worker because she is doing yoga and there are several sections on breath work in the book. Dr. Weil provides a lot of hope and reassurance. As a nurse of 29 years, I have seen a lot of damage done to patients using traditional medical and surgical approaches. Classical homeopathy has helped me more than anything over the years. I would always recommend primary prevention first (e.g. eating organic food, drinking purified water, exercising regularly [educate yourself on the differences between primary, secondary, and tertiary prevention as some "preventive" measures can be quite invasive and with risks]). Then I would recommend a natural approach unless the condition is emergent/life threatening. Dr. Weil covers many alternative and complementary approaches. Although they usually take time and patience, spontaneous healing can occur.

Received the book on time and well packaged. Very happy with this item.

Healing book with many practical ideas. Enjoy this book.

様々な病気のケーススタディーが記載されています。病名が合致しなくても自分の体の不調を回復させるのに何が必要か不必要かが見えてきます。 ワイル氏は野菜や穀類を中心とした食生活を勧められていて、実践することはそう難しいことではないでしょう。現代のローカーボ食事法に反した食事療法は健康維持のためにすべき基本を説いています。わたしは実践し続けていますが今年は花粉症が楽になっています。現代のローカーボ食事法に反した食事療法は健康維持のためにすべき基本を説いています。 また、食事だけでなく運動や睡眠、瞑想など健康維持に欠かせない様々な要素にも言及されています。

I thank the author for writing this book. He has given numerous examples which gives hope to the patient who is not in good health. He is knowledgeable. I would recommend the book to everyone who wants to maintain his health. - Vandana Deo Author of ' Soothing smoothies for health and beauty'

EXCELLENT