A gateway to understanding regression therapy that clearly depicts its power and potency.
Lawrence uses accounts from hypnosis sessions and past-life regression exercises to compellingly illustrate the ways that such practices can change one’s mind and life path.
The debut author, a certified clinical hypnotist, offers a stunning series of dialogues between herself and her patients, ranging from successful authors to people with a history of self-harm. Each of them has something in common: a desire to move past a mental obstacle in life. Lawrence carefully guides patients into a hypnotic state and encourages them to unlock their keys to shame, pain, misery, and self-destruction. In one example, a woman who was abused as a child confronts her own pattern of abusive relationships and violent behavior. She recognizes the belief that she formed as a child—that love is synonymous with abuse. In another example, a man troubled by his desire to be a woman seeks to determine its origin, as it only developed in his adult life. Through hypnosis, he discovers a moment in childhood when he felt ashamed and came to the determination he would only be worthy if he was female. Once patients are able to locate the catalyst for their issues, the author says, they’re able to “re-wire” the memory by “healing” their young, past self. Lawrence explains that because the critical mind only develops after age 8, anything a child experiences before then is accepted as truth, with no judgment or analysis. Hence, the beliefs they form during this time solidify in their adult minds. Overall, the author skillfully weaves her clear explanations into the narratives themselves, so that any reader who’s intrigued by the practices shown here may better understand how memories are formed and “re-wired.” Readers who are already experienced in the areas of hypnosis and regression therapy will find these stories vivid and telling, and those who are more simply and generally interested in the topic will likely want to explore it further.
A gateway to understanding regression therapy that clearly depicts its power and potency.Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5234-3944-7
Page Count: 272
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: April 13, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A very welcome instance of philosophy that can help readers live a good life.
A teacher and scholar of Buddhism offers a formally varied account of the available rewards of solitude.
“As Mother Ayahuasca takes me in her arms, I realize that last night I vomited up my attachment to Buddhism. In passing out, I died. In coming to, I was, so to speak, reborn. I no longer have to fight these battles, I repeat to myself. I am no longer a combatant in the dharma wars. It feels as if the course of my life has shifted onto another vector, like a train shunted off its familiar track onto a new trajectory.” Readers of Batchelor’s previous books (Secular Buddhism: Imagining the Dharma in an Uncertain World, 2017, etc.) will recognize in this passage the culmination of his decadeslong shift away from the religious commitments of Buddhism toward an ecumenical and homegrown philosophy of life. Writing in a variety of modes—memoir, history, collage, essay, biography, and meditation instruction—the author doesn’t argue for his approach to solitude as much as offer it for contemplation. Essentially, Batchelor implies that if you read what Buddha said here and what Montaigne said there, and if you consider something the author has noticed, and if you reflect on your own experience, you have the possibility to improve the quality of your life. For introspective readers, it’s easy to hear in this approach a direct response to Pascal’s claim that “all of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” Batchelor wants to relieve us of this inability by offering his example of how to do just that. “Solitude is an art. Mental training is needed to refine and stabilize it,” he writes. “When you practice solitude, you dedicate yourself to the care of the soul.” Whatever a soul is, the author goes a long way toward soothing it.
A very welcome instance of philosophy that can help readers live a good life.Pub Date: Feb. 18, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-300-25093-0
Page Count: 200
Publisher: Yale Univ.
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A moving, heartfelt account of a hospice veteran.
Lessons about life from those preparing to die.
A longtime hospice chaplain, Egan (Fumbling: A Pilgrimage Tale of Love, Grief, and Spiritual Renewal on the Camino de Santiago, 2004) shares what she has learned through the stories of those nearing death. She notices that for every life, there are shared stories of heartbreak, pain, guilt, fear, and regret. “Every one of us will go through things that destroy our inner compass and pull meaning out from under us,” she writes. “Everyone who does not die young will go through some sort of spiritual crisis.” The author is also straightforward in noting that through her experiences with the brokenness of others, and in trying to assist in that brokenness, she has found healing for herself. Several years ago, during a C-section, Egan suffered a bad reaction to the anesthesia, leading to months of psychotic disorders and years of recovery. The experience left her with tremendous emotional pain and latent feelings of shame, regret, and anger. However, with each patient she helped, the author found herself better understanding her own past. Despite her role as a chaplain, Egan notes that she rarely discussed God or religious subjects with her patients. Mainly, when people could talk at all, they discussed their families, “because that is how we talk about God. That is how we talk about the meaning of our lives.” It is through families, Egan began to realize, that “we find meaning, and this is where our purpose becomes clear.” The author’s anecdotes are often thought-provoking combinations of sublime humor and tragic pathos. She is not afraid to point out times where she made mistakes, even downright failures, in the course of her work. However, the nature of her work means “living in the gray,” where right and wrong answers are often hard to identify.
A moving, heartfelt account of a hospice veteran.Pub Date: Oct. 25, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-59463-481-9
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Riverhead
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2016
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