"In healing our symptoms and disease may or may not disappear or come under control. Yet if we gain greater insight with our life, and learn to be more compassionate toward ourselves and others, we can still heal," writes Donald M. Epstein, founder of Network Spinal Analysis and author of The Twelve Stages of Healing. This paperback exposes many of society's illusory myths about healing. Epstein has organized them into four categories: Social, Biomedical, Religious, and New Age.
The emphasis in allopathic (a.k.a. western or modern) medicine has been upon curing a condition. Some of the most egregious myths associated with this approach are: Every disease or illness can be traced to a physical cause. Healing requires a trained professional or a highly educated specialist. Symptoms and disease are inconvenient obstacles that need to be controlled or eliminated. Healing means feeling better.
Religion, with its various views of the body, and the New Age movement, with its core belief that we create the major events in our lives, has spawned other myths about healing. Some of these are: I must forgive in order to heal. The self or ego is the cause of distress or disease. Silence will heal me. I must "open my heart" in order to heal. People who are "enlightened" do not experience disease.
"Healing," according to Epstein, "is the outward manifestation of our inward journey of discovery." For each myth he debunks, the author suggests more useful attitudes and activities to promote healing. He shows how this always unpredictable process often leads to a change in our priorities and our perspectives. Epstein challenges us to reframe our view of healing and to see ourselves as "more powerful, loving, creative, prosperous, compassionate, and healthy then (we) have ever imagined."