Choices in Healing: Integrating the Best of Conventional and Complementary Approaches to Cancer

by Michael Lerner

Written by one of the country's leading authorities on alternative and complementary cancer treatments, Choices in Healing is designed for the cancer patient or health professional who seeks a comprehensive overview of the available choices, both in treatments and in living with cancer. Choices in Healing offers valuable information and guidance for the whole life cycle of cancer—from the initial shock of diagnosis to decisions about choosing a physician and conventional therapies, selecting complementary therapies, coping with treatment, and the art of living fully with the possibility of recurrence. There are detailed explanations and evaluations of a wide range of complementary therapy programs, including spiritual and psychological approaches, nutritional therapies, physical therapies, pharmacological therapies, and traditional medicines from around the world. There are sections on prayer and other forms of spiritual healing; psychotherapy, support groups, visual imagery and hypnosis; massage, therapeutic touch, yoga, and Qi Gong; macrobiotic diet and other cancer diets; acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicines; and numerous other unconventional therapies used by American cancer patients. With an unusual combination of compassion and objectivity, Michael Lerner describes his conclusions following more than a decade of study of unconventional cancer treatments in North America, Europe, India, and Japan. He also draws extensively on his work with hundreds of cancer patients who have participated in the Commonweal Cancer Help Programs, the residential support program depicted by Bill Moyers in his 1993 PBS documentary Healing and the Mind .

Genres: Health, Nonfiction

694 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1994

About the author

Michael Lerner was an American political activist, the editor of Tikkun, a progressive Jewish interfaith magazine based in Berkeley, California, and the rabbi of Beyt Tikkun Synagogue in Berkeley.

Reviews

[Mary · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fantastic comprehensive book on alternative cancer therapies, from Commonweal's Michael Lerner. It's 10 years old, but still hugely relevant and provides an overview of therapies from gerson's diet to vitamin-therapy, macrobiotics, mind-body, plus, more importantly, his extremely well-informed views on where these therapies show potential, or fall short. It's very well referenced... A book I'd highly recommend giving to friends/family with cancer.