Behind the acupuncture, herbal remedies and sophisticated diagnostics of Chinese medicine lies a ?congenial system of healing that embodies unification of body and mind, spirit and matter, nature and man, philosophy and reality.? In this comprehensive and ground-breaking presentation, based on long experience as physician, psychiatrist, and practitioner of Chinese medicine, Leon Hammer offers a new model for appreciating the traditional healer?s effective and profound respect for individual integrity and energetic balance. Explaining, and moving beyond, the five phase (element) system, he shows that this Eastern practice is as much a spiritual science as a physical one.
Accessible to the layman, yet a resource for the professional in any healing art, this book examines the natural energy functions of the human organism as a key to mental, emotional and spiritual health. It offers new insight into disease, showing how it is not merely an invasion from the outside, but rather a byproduct of a person?s unsuccessful attempt to restore one?s own balance.
REVIEWS
"Hammer has plumbed the depths of this most ancient healing tradition and offered his findings like the master teacher that he is . . . A major contribution."
?Pathways
"An excellent piece of work?honest, illuminating, and creative?and I would recommend it to anyone with a serious interest in Oriental medicine."
?Peter Eckman, M.D., Ph.D,
"Hammer argues cogently for a cause well worth taking seriously by health professionals and the public at large."
?Publishers Weekly
"Dr. Hammer has brought new light to the depths of Chinese medicine."
?Ted J. Kaptchuk, O.M.D.
CONTENTS
Contents
Map of Contents
Foreword
Preface to Revised Edition
Acknowledgements
Preliminary Distinctions
Chinese Medicine and Psychology: Congenial Therapeutic Partners
Chinese Medicine and Psychology: First Encounters and Empirical Implications
The Fundamental Energy Constructs of Chinese Medicine
Psychosomatic Medicine: West and East
The Traditional Five Phase System: Emotion and the Disease Process
A Revision of the Traditional Concepts of Emotion
in the Context of the Five Phase System
Introduction to the Natural Functions and Disharmony States of the Five Phase System
The Water Phase
The Wood Phase
The Fire Phase
The Earth Phase
The Metal Phase
Anxiety and Depression
The Systems Model of Dr. Shen
A Medical Model
A Recapitulation
Endnotes
Bibliography
Index
About the Author
extracts