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The Art of Healing: Uncovering Your Inner Wisdom and Potential for Self-Healing
In these pages, renowned medical doctor and spiritual teacher Bernie Siegel demonstrates how science and spirituality interact — and how you can tap your body’s potential to heal. After studying the use of crayon drawings by patients facing life-threatening disease, Bernie founded Exceptional Cancer Patients to facilitate self-induced healings, which were often called miraculous. Bernie realized our bodies actually want to heal, and we can aid this innate propensity through what are currently seen as unconventional practices, including drawing, visualization, dreams, love, and laughter. You’ll learn how to use these practices to help with everything from diagnosing and understanding your illness to making the correct treatment decisions to sharing your experience with loved ones and caregivers. Filled with inspiring true stories and suggestions for traveling your own healing journey, this book offers hands-on, patient-proven techniques that can create miracles.
256 pages, Paperback
First published August 20, 2013
67 people are currently reading
374 people want to read
About the author
Bernie S. Siegel
130 books126 followersBernie Siegel is an American writer and retired pediatric surgeon, who writes on the relationship between the patient and the healing process. He is known for his best-selling book Love, Medicine and Miracles.
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
July 11, 2024
Wonderful energy in this such a vibrancy for life and healing .
Great book to own as it will be one I would reread again .
Lots of photos for those interested in art therapy.
Great book for those suffering long term illness especially cancer.
Great book to own as it will be one I would reread again .
Lots of photos for those interested in art therapy.
Great book for those suffering long term illness especially cancer.
December 14, 2013
All Bernie's books are great. Before you get to the chapter on analyzing pictures, get the box of crayons out and draw a picture of yourself out in nature, or at home. Then you have your own picture to analyze before you understand the meanings.
May 27, 2017
This book will make you feel good. It's like having a cup of coffee near a fire with a dear friend. Dr. Siegel's work is about honoring yourself, an d itaccentuates the importance of self-love. It's about you, your life, and your life's path. If you are unhappy with any of the above, then this book will inspire you to become a seeker of change. As Dr. Siegel wisely says, "Learn how to still the mental turmoil and pay attention to the voice within you. Allow the miracle of love to enter and heal your life. When we love our lives, our bodies often get the message, decide to live, and heal."
The book is packed with anecdotes about those who Dr. Siegel has helped during his decades of practice, first as a pediatric surgeon and now teaching people how to empower themselves to induce their own healing. He offers prescriptive exercises that he calls "Doctor's Rx" to help you explore your inner most wisdoms and desires. He's proud of his career transition and refers to himself as a "Jungian Surgeon."
In addition to self-love, this book will remind you of the importance of doing what makes you happy. It's about laughing, listening, following your dreams and making the most of your time on this Earth. Doing so will make you feel alive. As Dr. Siegel says, "When the artist is alive within us, we become stimulating, creative beings from whom everyone around us can benefit," (p.9) thus leading us to our authentic life. Highly recommended!
The book is packed with anecdotes about those who Dr. Siegel has helped during his decades of practice, first as a pediatric surgeon and now teaching people how to empower themselves to induce their own healing. He offers prescriptive exercises that he calls "Doctor's Rx" to help you explore your inner most wisdoms and desires. He's proud of his career transition and refers to himself as a "Jungian Surgeon."
In addition to self-love, this book will remind you of the importance of doing what makes you happy. It's about laughing, listening, following your dreams and making the most of your time on this Earth. Doing so will make you feel alive. As Dr. Siegel says, "When the artist is alive within us, we become stimulating, creative beings from whom everyone around us can benefit," (p.9) thus leading us to our authentic life. Highly recommended!
October 4, 2020
A beautiful story of the evolution of a doctor in making the mind body connection. You get the impression that this is a kind caring man who also happens to be a doctor and he brings this compassion into his profession. This is an anomaly in so many ways. He gives examples and a simple discussion on many topics that you can go and investigate further. He contributes his first hand knowledge to his narrative and studies. I appreciate this truth and discovery.
January 22, 2022
An easy reading and, as other people commented in their reviews, it does make you feel good. My favorite part was the one on drawings and the interpretation of these drawings. The interpretation had a bit more details, more intuitive details and a very interesting view overall compared to oher drawings interpretation I have read about.
There are a lot of books/ articles I plan on reading after finding out about them in this book.
It’s more like a book for your heart than a book for your mind.
There are a lot of books/ articles I plan on reading after finding out about them in this book.
It’s more like a book for your heart than a book for your mind.
March 28, 2022
I would give this more of a 3.5. I definitely struggled holding my attention to it. The authors have a powerful message. However, I do think that there is a danger of holistic health without a figure serving as a guide. Bernie S. Siegel does have his MD, but he is not an art therapist. There are people that can help heal that are certified to do so. Siegel’s avenue is a dangerous one to go down without more legitimate practitioners helping along the way.
March 24, 2021
J'ai adoré ce livre choisi un peu par "hasard" et qui résonne avec mon rôle de thérapeute. Je suis très friande des retours d'expériences de mes "collègues" et des outils qu'ils mettent en place. Je le relirai pour prendre des notes et appliquer dans ma vie les différentes notions abordées.
April 22, 2023
The reminder I needed to get back into nonfiction!
October 16, 2019
This is a good self-help book to help you remain focused on what is real.
You do not have to follow everything he preaches. But it's worth reading just cause he is so upbeat with what he says. Siegel also has a blog/website -for sure his resources alone can point you in the right direction.
His confidence comes from his positive attitude and his life experiences. The Art of Healing, actual drawing art. He makes reference to the model given by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross (1926 -2004).
When you are controlled by your beliefs, it again slams the door.
Watch out for guilt, shame and blame.
Fear is destructive to your immune system. We can recreate ourselves. Enjoy your day and live. Pay attention to what you are paying attention to -Focus.
You do not have to follow everything he preaches. But it's worth reading just cause he is so upbeat with what he says. Siegel also has a blog/website -for sure his resources alone can point you in the right direction.
His confidence comes from his positive attitude and his life experiences. The Art of Healing, actual drawing art. He makes reference to the model given by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross (1926 -2004).
When you are controlled by your beliefs, it again slams the door.
Watch out for guilt, shame and blame.
Fear is destructive to your immune system. We can recreate ourselves. Enjoy your day and live. Pay attention to what you are paying attention to -Focus.
July 20, 2015
I picked up this book thinking that I would only learn about subconscious messages in drawing and I was given much more than that. Dr. Siegel explores a variety of ways in which the reader can improve his/her health through entirely holistic methods.
I found his dream interpretation section to be intriguing. He puts forth the idea that the subconscious knows the most elegant answer to whatever is troubling the physical body or emotional health. To access that knowledge through your dreams, simply keep a journal by your bed and "ask" yourself whatever it is that you need to know before you go to sleep, jot down your dreams throughout the night, then analyze them the next day to get your answer. I received some very interesting results from my own dream experiment and intend to continue the practice.
When I was teaching a meditation class a couple of years ago, one of my students kept a dream journal. I asked her if she found it to be of any benefit and she told me that it was one of the best ways that she had discovered to communicate with her inner knowledge. She wrote down everything that she could remember about her dreams and had discovered patterns that ran throughout. She even had evidence of a few prophetic dreams. If you're considering starting a dream journal of your own, I'd highly recommend it.
As for the drawing interpretation, Dr. Siegel is clearly an expert at it, but he didn't communicate that knowledge very well. Plus, even when he did explain his reasoning behind the, sometimes very specific, interpretations, he tacked on the caveat: don't dismiss a patient's own personal preferences for colors/situations/figures/etc. in your examination of the drawing. So, instead of trying to tease the meaning out of the picture, why don't we just ask the artist what the picture means to them and go from there? Maybe I just didn't get it.
I took a lot of notes during his discussion about the power of creative visualization. I knew most of what he was talking about, but it was nice to hear it again from a world renowned surgeon. So many holistic practices are dismissed by the larger medical community as crap simply because they exist out of the curriculum taught at college. I think that if it works, we should use it. Maybe we don't understand why exactly it works, but who cares. Focus on the results.
If you enjoyed The Art of Healing, pick up Dying to Be Me by Anita Moorjani (Anita had a near death experience and then came back to a body that had spontaneously healed itself of the tumors that killed her) or Fringe-ology by Steve Volk (Steve covers a lot of "fringe" topics in this book but what made me recommend it for The Art of Healing is his in-depth analysis of the life and spiritual experiences of Elizabeth Kubler-Ross who is mentioned throughout this book).
I found his dream interpretation section to be intriguing. He puts forth the idea that the subconscious knows the most elegant answer to whatever is troubling the physical body or emotional health. To access that knowledge through your dreams, simply keep a journal by your bed and "ask" yourself whatever it is that you need to know before you go to sleep, jot down your dreams throughout the night, then analyze them the next day to get your answer. I received some very interesting results from my own dream experiment and intend to continue the practice.
When I was teaching a meditation class a couple of years ago, one of my students kept a dream journal. I asked her if she found it to be of any benefit and she told me that it was one of the best ways that she had discovered to communicate with her inner knowledge. She wrote down everything that she could remember about her dreams and had discovered patterns that ran throughout. She even had evidence of a few prophetic dreams. If you're considering starting a dream journal of your own, I'd highly recommend it.
As for the drawing interpretation, Dr. Siegel is clearly an expert at it, but he didn't communicate that knowledge very well. Plus, even when he did explain his reasoning behind the, sometimes very specific, interpretations, he tacked on the caveat: don't dismiss a patient's own personal preferences for colors/situations/figures/etc. in your examination of the drawing. So, instead of trying to tease the meaning out of the picture, why don't we just ask the artist what the picture means to them and go from there? Maybe I just didn't get it.
I took a lot of notes during his discussion about the power of creative visualization. I knew most of what he was talking about, but it was nice to hear it again from a world renowned surgeon. So many holistic practices are dismissed by the larger medical community as crap simply because they exist out of the curriculum taught at college. I think that if it works, we should use it. Maybe we don't understand why exactly it works, but who cares. Focus on the results.
If you enjoyed The Art of Healing, pick up Dying to Be Me by Anita Moorjani (Anita had a near death experience and then came back to a body that had spontaneously healed itself of the tumors that killed her) or Fringe-ology by Steve Volk (Steve covers a lot of "fringe" topics in this book but what made me recommend it for The Art of Healing is his in-depth analysis of the life and spiritual experiences of Elizabeth Kubler-Ross who is mentioned throughout this book).
Read
November 16, 2013Skimmed through. I want to remember:
p. 39 - Take a mental walk through your body; visualize healing & health; think about areas of discomfort & the words you'd use to describe your experience of symptoms; what relationships / situations are also described by those same words?
p 147 - Get to know yourself as a child; find photos, talk to the child, reassure safety, fall in love.
p. 157 - Change "have" to "get" (I get to pay the bills).
p. 162 - Identify negative statements in mind; create positive affirmations addressing them.
p. 39 - Take a mental walk through your body; visualize healing & health; think about areas of discomfort & the words you'd use to describe your experience of symptoms; what relationships / situations are also described by those same words?
p 147 - Get to know yourself as a child; find photos, talk to the child, reassure safety, fall in love.
p. 157 - Change "have" to "get" (I get to pay the bills).
p. 162 - Identify negative statements in mind; create positive affirmations addressing them.
February 27, 2014
this is the first book i've read by dr Siegel and I just loved it. Right from the 2nd chapter where he talked about seeds and their resilience, to the ideas of animal communication. this was an excellent book on the power of our inner wisdom.
July 26, 2015
I gave it a low rating only because very little new onformation for me.
September 24, 2016
I love Bernie Siegel and every word he says and every thought he has . . .
Read
July 29, 2017Inner work, shadow work, journal prompts. Rich and excellent.
April 27, 2020
1 week loan of ebook expired while I was on chapter 6
January 24, 2015
This is a really great book!!!
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews