Healing with the Mind's Eye

Michael Samuels

Description

"Dr. Michael Samuels provides us with new tools and ways of thinking about our capacity to heal. He has been a wonderful teacher for me and can be for you. . . . His work is inspiring."
-Bernie Siegel, M.D.

"Dr. Michael Samuels is one of the leading pioneers in exploring creativity as an important part of every person's healing journey."
-Dean Ornish, M.D.

"I was very moved by this powerful book."
-Christiane Northrup, M.D., on Spirit Body Healing

This remarkable book, now in paperback for the first time, can help you tap your own inner strength to enhance healing. For nearly three decades, Dr. Michael Samuels has pioneered the use of guided imagery as a way to help people boost their immune systems-and feel stronger and more in control of their lives.

In Healing with the Mind's Eye, now revised and updated, Dr. Samuels offers you the same program of guided imagery exercises that he's used successfully in patient workshops across the country. You'll discover how to harness a variety of creative visionary techniques-reverie states, personal myths, helping figures, inner light, healing visions, healing imagery, and spiritual transformations-drawn from traditions around the world. As you progress through the exercises in the book, you'll open yourself to healing and change-and embark on your own journey toward wellness.
Preface.

Acknowledgments.

PART ONE: JOY AND DELIGHT—AH-H.

Introduction—Happiness, Health, and the Healing Spirit.

1. The Awakening.

2. The Vehicle: Reverie States.

3. The Journey: Attitudes and Personal Myths.

4. Inner Guides: Helping Figures.

PART TWO: HEALING IN THE SACRED SPACE—AWE.

5. The Light.

6. The Vision.

7. The Image.

8. The Power: Spiritual Transformation.

Notes.

Bibliography.

Index.

Sujets

• Santé et bien-être
• Santé du quotidien
• Santé au quotidien
• Santé au quotidien
• Fitness
• Health
• Mind
• Michael Samuels

Informations

• Publié par: Turner Publishing Company
• Date de parution: 24 août 2007
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780470256329
• Langue: English

Extrait

H EALING WITH THE M IND’S E YE
 
 
Other Books by Michael Samuels
With Mary Rockwood Lane
Spirit Body Healing: Using Your Mind’s Eye to Unlock the Medicine Within
Shaman Wisdom, Shaman Healing: Deepen Your Ability to Heal with Visionary and Spiritual Tools and Practices
Creative Healing: How to Heal Yourself by Tapping Your Inner Creativity
The Path of the Feather: A Handbook and Kit for Making
Medicine Wheels and Calling in the Spirit Animals
With Nancy Samuels
Seeing with the Mind’s Eye
The Well Baby Book
The Well Child Book
The Well Child Coloring Book
The Well Pregnancy Book
The Well Adult
Take Charge of Your Hypertension
Take Charge of Your Arthritis
Take Charge of Your Heart Disease
With Hal Z. Bennett
The Well Body Book
Spirit Guides: Access to Inner Worlds
Be Well
Well Body, Well Earth
H EALING WITH THE M IND’S E YE
H OW TO U SE G UIDED I MAGERY AND V ISIONS TO H EAL B ODY , M IND, AND S PIRIT
Revised and Updated Edition
Michael Samuels, M.D.

John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Copyright © 1990, 2003 by Michael Samuels, M.D. All rights reserved
Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey Published simultaneously in Canada
Design and production by Navta Associates, Inc.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, [phone], fax [phone], or on the web at www.copyright.com . Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, [phone], fax [phone], email: [e-mail].
Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and the author have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales representatives or written sales materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a professional where appropriate. Neither the publisher nor the author shall be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages.
For general information about our other products and services, please contact our Customer Care Department within the United States at [phone], outside the United States at [phone] or fax [phone].
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:
Samuels, Michael, M.D.
Healing with the mind’s eye : how to use guided imagery and visions to heal body, mind, and spirit, revised and updated edition / Michael Samuels.
    p. cm.
Previously published: New York : Summit Books, c1990.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-471-45908-9 (pbk.)
  1. Imagery (Psychology)—Therapeutic use. 2. Imagination—Therapeutic use. 3. Maturation (Psychology) 4. Self-actualization (Psychology) I. Title.
RC489.F35S26  2003 616.89’14—dc21
2003053800
Printed in the United States of America
10  9  8  7  6  5  4  3  2  1
To Nancy and her everlasting love
C ONTENTS
Preface
Acknowledgments
PART ONE
J OY AND D ELIGHT —A H-H

Introduction—Happiness, Health, and the Healing Spirit

1 The Awakening

2 The Vehicle: Reverie States

3 The Journey: Attitudes and Personal Myths

4 Inner Guides: Helping Figures
PART TWO
H EALING IN THE S ACRED S PACE —A WE

5 The Light

6 The Vision

7 The Image

8 The Power: Spiritual Transformation
Notes
Bibliography
Index
P REFACE
It is with great pleasure that I give you this new edition of Healing with the Mind’s Eye. The book is beloved to me and many patients; it has often been referenced as a basic guided imagery sourcebook. Its deep and powerful guided imagery exercises are transformative and healing. We have had numerous requests for a new edition and are delighted that John Wiley & Sons and Tom Miller, my editor, have made it happen.
The material in Healing with the Mind’s Eye is as revolutionary today as it was when it was written ten years ago; there is little in the book that I have changed. Healing with the Mind’s Eye was ahead of its time when it was published: guided imagery and spiritual techniques are now in the forefront of medicine. Medicine has changed, and guided imagery’s role in health care has changed. Guided imagery has gone from a new unproven technique to a powerful research-proven tool that is now in use in most hospitals. The guided imagery exercises in Healing with the Mind’s Eye are among the most detailed and advanced guided imagery exercises available.
Medicine is catching up with Healing with the Mind’s Eye in its approach to healing the whole person—body, mind, and spirit. Medicine today strives to look at the patient as a whole. The mission statement for many leading medical centers is stated clearly, you even hear it on the radio in publicity and promotion releases. “Our goal is to treat the whole person—body, mind, and spirit.” There are now seventy-five departments of spirituality and health care in major medical centers, including several with multimillion-dollar grants and budgets from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The most forward-thinking health theorists teach us that we are more than our bodies, and that healing the spirit or the soul increases healing by 100 percent. Some health care theorists even call soul or spirit healing the 100 percent factor. When asking about what a physician has done to heal a patient, they ask, “Did you use the 100 percent factor; did you heal spirit?”
Patients are different now, too. They are more creative, they are interested in the earth, personal growth, consciousness, meditation, and spirituality. They want to be healed as well as cured. They want to learn and be changed by an illness experience, they want to grow and expand their consciousness. They want their suffering to inform their existence. Thinking of illness as a purely negative experience has been replaced by thinking of it as an opportunity for change and transformation. Healing with the Mind’s Eye explains how to make illness transformative in a person’s life. It gives people tools to expand their consciousness and grow in each guided imagery exercise. If you come to this book with an illness, you will learn how to take your illness and use it to create deep change. After healing, you can make your life more beautiful than you have ever dreamed.
New research in guided imagery has validated the initial expectations about how imagery effects physiology and health. Guided imagery is now known as the magic bullet in body, mind, and spirit medicine. It is used in almost every body-mind intervention. For the body, the latest research indicates that guided imagery decreases headache pain in tension headache patients, decreases anxiety and pain in surgical patients, shortens hospital stay and reduces medication use in post-surgical heart surgery and colon surgery patients. This last research alone demonstrates that guided imagery would save an average hospital millions of dollars a year and mandates that every hospital put a guided imagery program into surgical units.
Guided imagery has also been shown to reduce the side effects of chemotherapy and radiation in cancer patients, reduce blood glucose levels in diabetics, reduce allergy symptoms, and enhance sleep. This research gives each of us the impetus to use guided imagery for healing. The guided imagery exercises in this book are as powerful as most medications used for healing and pain relief.
For the mind, guided imagery has been shown in numerous studies to enhance self-confidence and self-esteem and to enhance a person’s total quality of life. Guided imagery has been shown in randomized studies to be a catalyst for spiritual experiences and growth. If there was a medication that could do even a part of this body, mind, and spirit healing, it would be hailed as the largest medical breakthrough of the century. Indeed, guided imagery is that breakthrough.
Welcome to this new edition of Healing with the Mind’s Eye . New readers are welcomed and are invited on this exciting journey of healing. Use the 100 percent factor to optimize your healing. Heal your body, mind, and spirit with the wonderful research-proven techniques in this book.
A CKNOWLEDGMENTS
I feel a deep sense of gratitude to patients and workshop participants I have worked with over my many years of practice. From them, I have learned the beauty and dignity of healing.
I also wish to thank a number of colleagues who have profoundly affected my thought and practice. For the first edition I want to thank Jeanne Achterberg and Frank Lawlis, who have been mentors to me and many others. Our workshops together have been moving and transformative. I want to thank Michael Lerner and all the staff at Commonweal for showing me how love and healing can coexist with technical medical treatment. Special thanks to all the people who have participated in the Symington Foundation Conferences on New Directions in Cancer Care. I value each of them for their knowledge and their openness. I also wish to thank my dear friends Phyllis and Marshall Klaus, from whom I’ve benefited greatly by exchanging ideas about healing.
Books do not appear magically by themselves. For this book’s existence I owe special appreciation