Recommended Books
Dr. Turner studied patients who experienced a spontaneous remission from cancer—even after conventional medicine had failed. Her research included interviewing over 100 Radical Remission survivors and studying over 1000 of these cases. Her evidence presents ten common themes that she believes may help even terminal patients turn their lives around.
Dr. Rankin focuses on the body’s innate ability to self-repair and offers an appreciation for how we can control these self-healing mechanisms with the power of the mind. Dr. Rankin shows how thoughts, feelings, and beliefs can alter the body’s physiology. She lays out the scientific data proving that loneliness, pessimism, depression, fear, and anxiety damage the body, while intimate relationships, gratitude, meditation, sex, and authentic self-expression flip on the body’s self-healing processes.
Cured: Strengthen Your Immune System and Heal Your Life by Dr. Jeffrey Rediger
In Cured, Dr. Rediger digs down to the root causes of illness, showing how to create an environment that sets the stage for healing. He reveals the patterns behind healing and lays out the physical and mental principles associated with recovery: first, we need to physically heal our diet and our immune systems. Next, we need to mentally heal our stress response and our identities.
Getting Well Again by O. Carl Simonton and Stephanie Matthews-Simonton
Based on Simontons' experience with hundreds of patients, Getting Well Again introduces the scientific basis for the "will to live." Simonton profiles the typical "cancer personality": how an individual's reactions to stress and other emotional factors can contribute to the onset and progress of cancer -- and how positive expectations, self-awareness, and self-care can contribute to survival.
The Healing Journey by O. Carl Simonton
In Part one of The Healing Journey, Dr. Simonton outlines the program currently in use at the Simonton Cancer Center in California. Part two of The Healing Journey offers words of comfort and strength from one of Dr. Simonton’s patients who used the program to participate in regaining his own health.
Mindfulness-Based Cancer Recovery: A Step-by-Step MBSR Approach to Help You Cope with Treatment and Reclaim Your Life by Linda Carlson PhD
Research shows that if you mentally prepare yourself to handle cancer treatment by getting stress and anxiety under control, you can improve your quality of life and become an active participant in your own recovery. The Mindfulness-Based Cancer Recovery program is a therapeutic combination of mindfulness meditation and gentle yoga that can guide you to let go of fear and focus on getting well.
The Journey Through Cancer: An Oncologist's Seven-Level Program for Healing and Transforming the Whole Person by Jeremy Geffen, M.D.
Dr. Jeremy Geffen has learned how cancer often challenges the mind, heart, and spirit of patients and their families and that, too often, physicians focus almost exclusively on the physical dimensions of the disease, rather than caring for the whole person who has the disease. Dr. Geffen presents a seven-level program, used at his cancer center in Florida, that addresses every dimension of the person with cancer--physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual.
The Biology of Belief: Unleashing the Power of Consciousness, Matter, & Miracles by Bruce H. Lipton
Dr. Lipton discusses the interaction between your mind and body and the processes by which cells receive information. Research shows that genes and DNA do not control our biology, that instead DNA is controlled by signals from outside the cell, including the energetic messages emanating from our thoughts.
Why People Don't Heal and How They Can by Caroline Myss
Dr. Myss illuminates the hidden interactions of belief and body, soul and cell to show how, “your biography becomes your biology." Myss explains the cultural and individual contexts in which people become physically and spiritually ill and invested in "woundology," and teaches new methods of working with the challenges that the seven energy centers embody.
Perfect Health: The Complete Mind/Body Guide by Deepak Chopra, M.D.
Perfect Health provides practical guide to harnessing the healing power of the mind based on breakthroughs in physics and medicine that were underscoring the validity of a 5,000-year-old medical system from ancient India known as Ayurveda ("the knowledge of life span" in Sanskrit). Perfect Health describes how to apply the ancient wisdom of Ayurveda to everyday life.
Mindfulness for Beginners: Reclaiming the Present Moment and Your Life by Jon Kabat-Zinn
A great introduction to meditation! Learn why Zinn describes mindfulness as “A love affair with life, with reality, and imagination.”
Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness by Jon Kabat-Zinn
Based on Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn’s renowned mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) program, this book shows you how to manage chronic pain resulting from illness and/or stress related disorders, reduce anxiety and feelings of panic, and improve your overall quality of life and relationships through mindfulness meditation and mindful yoga.
The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer by Siddhartha Mukherjee
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, and now a documentary from Ken Burns on PBS, The Emperor of All Maladies is a magnificent, profoundly humane “biography” of cancer—from its first documented appearances thousands of years ago through the epic battles in the twentieth century to cure, control, and conquer it to a radical new understanding of its essence.
Crazy Sexy Cancer Tips by Kris Carr
A great resource for young people with cancer, Crazy Sexy Cancer Tips gathers the lessons learned and advice offered from Carr’s own cancer journey, as well as the experiences of her “cancer posse.” Chapters cover your changing social life, dating, sex, and appearance; essential health tips on how to boost your immune system; recipes; medical and holistic resources; and information on young survivor support groups.
Kitchen Table Wisdom: Stories That Heal by Rachel Naomi Remen, M.D.
Dr. Remen is one of a growing number of physicians exploring the spiritual dimension of the healing arts. She is awed by the vitality of the life force, which she witnesses through her work counseling cancer patients and through her keen eye for the depths of ordinary people. Remen tells of those who, having fallen ill, discovered previously untapped wells of fortitude and who, ironically, gained a peace of mind they had never known when well.
Grief Entanglements: Understanding Unresolved Grief and What You Can Do About It by Sharon Greenlee
Professional Counselor, Sharon Greenlee, identifies circumstances or issues that may cause a grieving person to become stuck in the grief process and she outlines ways to move from entangled grief, to a healthy and peaceful resolve.