This book maps the "familiar but foreign landscape of sickness." The author, who has a private practice as a counselor in New Mexico, spent two years of her life contending with Chronic Fatigue and Immune Dysfunction Syndrome. In this insightful and brilliantly written book, Duff delves into the meaning and purpose of illness.

First of all, illness offers "an extraordinary — if at times frightening — vantage point from which to view the terrain of one's life." Duff's journey through the underworld of illness brought forth a memory of having been sexually abused as an infant. Through her dreams and other reveries while sick, she witnessed "the delights and terrors of a lifetime."

Duff describes illness as "a crucible that tries our mettle and tests our limits." She recounts the dirty work of disease — the pain, the tossing and turning, and the depression, as well as the salutary effect of "cancelling the claims of the world and the hold on ordinary consciousness." Illness slowed her down enough so that she was able to get in touch with values beyond extroversion and productivity.

The author comes to see her illness as a spiritual path and practice. The abstinence, isolation, and stillness which accompanied it created an occasion for her spiritual transformation. She writes about the initiation rites of traditional peoples and of the alchemical process of breakdown and renewal.

In the end, Duff notes: "We are not responsible for our illnesses, we are responsible to them, to what they offer and require of all of us, sick and well alike." Ancient peoples have taught us how to honor and utilize illnesses as special resources on our spiritual journey. The Alchemy of Illness reinvigorates this soulful process and in doing so fulfills Kat Duff's goal of restoring "mystery and dignity to the experience of being sick."