Not all of them had peaceful, loving, trusting dispositions- that was clear. Some were downright ornery. But over and over we took note of a certain quality that we came to call "congruence"- an impression that these people, in the midst of crisis, had discovered a way to be deeply true to themselves, manifesting a set of behaviors growing from the roots of their being.
Certain of Dr. Oliver's cases have particularly strained his understanding of biological science. He fishes from a file cabinet the lung X rays of his "famous remission," a woman he treated between 1981 and 1983. Her kidney tumor had metastasized to her lungs, and her prognosis was terminal. But Oliver found that her tumors waxed and waned not with the inexorable progress of kidney cancer, but with the ups and downs of her relationship with her physically abusive husband.
In a spectacular contribution to what is known about the mind/body connection, the authors investigate cases of remarkable recovery, offering many illuminating thoughts on the nature of healing. When the authors began their exploration of remarkable healings, certain facts became obvious: the medical community maintained an uneasy silence on the subject, andon those rare occasions when they did discuss these cases, they seemed admiring, but strangely lacking in simple curiosity, much less scientific methodology. They asked no questions, or none of the right questions. Caryle Hirshberg and Marc Ian Barasch attempt to ask all the right questions-about the lifestyles, attitudes, hobbies, intimate relationships, social support, and spiritual and religious beliefs and practices of the extraordinary men, women and children whose stories of miraculous healings they tell. In the process, they begin to discover those qualities that may be associated with healing, finding that intuition, determination, faith, even playing a musical instrument, may improve our chances of recovery. -- From The WomanSource Catalog & Review: Tools for Connecting the Community for Women; review by Patricia Pettijohn