“When I was in the hospital I was poked and probed and ultraviolated, but never touched,” a patient told Dr. Jeff Kane. Over the past forty years he's heard thousands of such stories from patients and their families. They appreciate medicine’s awesome technology, but yearn for low-tech contact. They want their suffering treated as well as their illness. Dr. Kane shows that our current “healthcare crisis” isn’t fundamentally economic, but social: where we’d benefit from skilled doctor-patie...

Not long ago, bedside manner” was a physician’s most potent medicine. Now that skill has dwindled to bland, generic amiability, and has been all but lost behind today’s compelling healthcare technology. The bedside manner’s shrinkage would be tolerable if medical high tech could cure everything, but these amazing tools are alarmingly cost-ineffective in treating most patients-those who suffer from chronic, incurable illnesses and the effects of detrimental lifestyles. Paying far too much ...

The ability to heal is not reserved for a gifted few. Anyone aching to ease the suffering of a sick friend or loved one can learn to become unconditionally present to the sick person rather than to the disease. Through stories filled with compassion, wisdom, and gentle humor, Dr. Jeff Kane shows readers how to use mindful attention, therapeutic listening, and truthful speech to help others heal.

THE #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERMillions of readers literally defined their lives through Gail Sheehy's landmark bestseller Passages. Seven years ago she set out to write a sequel, but instead she discovered a historic revolution in the adult life cycle. . .People are taking longer to grow up and much longer to die. A fifty-year-old woman--who remains free of cancer and heart disease-- can expect to see her ninety-second birthday. Men, too, can expect a dramatically lengthene...

As a university professor, an environmentalist, and a world-traveller, Sue Hendler was thriving. Then she was diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer. She had to give up her job, make hard decisions about medical treatment, and drastically shorten her vision of the future. As her cancer spread, she ironically acquired a new identity as a cancer “survivor.” Compelled to find meaning in her “new normal” of life with a fatal disease, she decided to write for a wider audience. In...

At the start of this intimate and moving memoir, Dr. David Servan- Schreiber is returning by bicycle to his Paris home from an unsettling appointment. Following several months of fatigue and fainting spells, he had scheduled an emergency MRI. The results confirm his worst fears: the return of the cancer that he was first diagnosed with nineteen years earlier.Fully aware of what the prognosis means, he redoubles his commitment to an Anticancer diet, and complements his chem...

Here is the first book to explore every facet of the most common and debilitating emotional state: worry. While a healthy level of worry can help us perform efficiently at work, anticipate dangers, and learn from past errors, in its extreme forms worry can become "toxic"--poisoning our pleasures, sabotaging our achievements, and preventing us from resolving actual problems.In this lucid, reassuring book, Dr. Hallowell discusses all types of worry, explores their underlying causes, ...

Panic attacks are extreme sensations of fear that overwhelm the individual. They affect nearly 10% of the population. The sufferer feels helpless and in doubt of their sanity.How to stop this nightmare?This book presents a concise and effective procedure to switch off the panic. The author, Jeffrey L. Hammes, provides a clear understanding of why panic occurs and reveals that having a panic attack is actually a perfectly normal reaction to stress that can befall anyone....

Almost all of us know someone with cancer.And, of course, we want nothing more than to offer comfort and support, and foster hope. But we don’t always know how—and may feel uncomfortable asking. Following her own treatment for cancer, Lori Hope created a survey for cancer survivors addressing issues they wanted their families, friends, and caregivers to understand. The results of the newly expanded survey are presented with honesty, insight, and humor, and compleme...

In 2004, Brian Knowler was the first police officer at the scene of a fatal collision. The driver who died was a close friend of Brian's and died while Brian was attempting to save his life. For 8 years, Brian hid the physical and psychological effects of that evening while his personal and professional life crashed around him. In 2012, he finally admitted that he had a problem and was diagnosed with PTSD. In the years since then, he has regained control of his life. This book is the story...

" The Art of Dying speaks to modern readers with refreshing frankness and wit. It covers the subject thoroughly, from how to inform relatives of impending death, to coping with pain and fear, to death rituals, to preparing for a possible afterlife or, depending on one's viewpoint, the end of it all." — Publishers Weekly"Along with our caring presence, this book may be the finest gift we can give someone facing the last stage of life." —Rabbi Harold Kushner, author...

A classic of patient empowerment, Peace, Love & Healing offered the revolutionary message that we have an innate ability to heal ourselves. Now proven by numerous scientific studies, the connection between our minds and our bodies has been increasingly accepted as fact throughout the mainstream medical community. In a new introduction, Dr. Bernie Siegel highligths current research on the relationships among consciousness, psychosocial factors, attitude and immune function....