A sometimes-vague book that nonetheless features some helpful philosophies.
A small-town doctor in Iowa explains the methodology of his practice of “medical intimacy,” which he claims has cured ailments that other doctors have deemed incurable.
Time and again in his medical practice, debut author Coram says, he sees patients who’ve been told that there’s no cure for their ailments, including Parkinson’s disease, chronic pain from injuries, and even cancer. The patients seem beaten down by their diseases, he says, and their doctors have given them no reason to hope. But Coram, who’s been trained as a nurse and a chiropractor, believes that hope—that is, the belief that what one wants to happen can actually happen—is key to the healing process. Coram’s practices draw on spiritual ideas (such as “Merging With Our Source”), conversational therapy, and physical therapy, and he provides long, testimonial-style interviews with past patients who are healing or recovering from a variety of ailments, from eating disorders to cancer. Ultimately, Coram’s belief that the health of the body isn’t solely physical or mental seems sound, and his goals of self-knowledge, self-love, and self-acceptance seem logical and admirable; indeed, they sound a lot like simple mindfulness. Yet what exactly happens during patients’ visits remains vague and unclear, particularly regarding the amount of physical work. At one point, for example, it seems as if the author was somehow able to halt a patient’s cancer simply by talking her through past traumas and pathological triggers. When his patients wax philosophical about their experiences, it appears as if the author is acting more like a therapist and spiritual guide than as a nurse and chiropractor: “When I look at each patient, I see a perfectly well and vital being who has temporarily forgotten who he or she is,” he writes. Still, Coram has an immaculately clean and casual prose style, and his wholeness-first approach to healing is compelling and hopeful—a useful reminder of the power of loving oneself.
A sometimes-vague book that nonetheless features some helpful philosophies.Pub Date: March 14, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5043-7524-5
Page Count: 126
Publisher: BalboaPress
Review Posted Online: July 25, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
These platitudes need perspective; better to buy the books they came from.
A lightweight collection of self-help snippets from the bestselling author.
What makes a quote a quote? Does it have to be quoted by someone other than the original author? Apparently not, if we take Strayed’s collection of truisms as an example. The well-known memoirist (Wild), novelist (Torch), and radio-show host (“Dear Sugar”) pulls lines from her previous pages and delivers them one at a time in this small, gift-sized book. No excerpt exceeds one page in length, and some are only one line long. Strayed doesn’t reference the books she’s drawing from, so the quotes stand without context and are strung together without apparent attention to structure or narrative flow. Thus, we move back and forth from first-person tales from the Pacific Crest Trail to conversational tidbits to meditations on grief. Some are astoundingly simple, such as Strayed’s declaration that “Love is the feeling we have for those we care deeply about and hold in high regard.” Others call on the author’s unique observations—people who regret what they haven’t done, she writes, end up “mingy, addled, shrink-wrapped versions” of themselves—and offer a reward for wading through obvious advice like “Trust your gut.” Other quotes sound familiar—not necessarily because you’ve read Strayed’s other work, but likely due to the influence of other authors on her writing. When she writes about blooming into your own authenticity, for instance, one is immediately reminded of Anaïs Nin: "And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” Strayed’s true blossoming happens in her longer works; while this collection might brighten someone’s day—and is sure to sell plenty of copies during the holidays—it’s no substitute for the real thing.
These platitudes need perspective; better to buy the books they came from.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-101-946909
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2015
Readers unfamiliar with the anecdotal material Greene presents may find interesting avenues to pursue, but they should...
Greene (The 33 Strategies of War, 2007, etc.) believes that genius can be learned if we pay attention and reject social conformity.
The author suggests that our emergence as a species with stereoscopic, frontal vision and sophisticated hand-eye coordination gave us an advantage over earlier humans and primates because it allowed us to contemplate a situation and ponder alternatives for action. This, along with the advantages conferred by mirror neurons, which allow us to intuit what others may be thinking, contributed to our ability to learn, pass on inventions to future generations and improve our problem-solving ability. Throughout most of human history, we were hunter-gatherers, and our brains are engineered accordingly. The author has a jaundiced view of our modern technological society, which, he writes, encourages quick, rash judgments. We fail to spend the time needed to develop thorough mastery of a subject. Greene writes that every human is “born unique,” with specific potential that we can develop if we listen to our inner voice. He offers many interesting but tendentious examples to illustrate his theory, including Einstein, Darwin, Mozart and Temple Grandin. In the case of Darwin, Greene ignores the formative intellectual influences that shaped his thought, including the discovery of geological evolution with which he was familiar before his famous voyage. The author uses Grandin's struggle to overcome autistic social handicaps as a model for the necessity for everyone to create a deceptive social mask.
Readers unfamiliar with the anecdotal material Greene presents may find interesting avenues to pursue, but they should beware of the author's quirky, sometimes misleading brush-stroke characterizations.Pub Date: Nov. 13, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-670-02496-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2012
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