Health Organization for Pudendal Education

This is a great book about the mind and body, and its lessons can be applied regardless of what is happening with your physical body (surgery or not, pain or not, cure or not). Its lessons can also be applied to emotional suffering (from causes other than physical pain).

It's about facing suffering in a way that diminishes your suffering. It's not about curing yourself of physical problems through your mind or suggesting emotional or mind-based causes of physical problems.

Full Catastrophe Living, by Jon Kabat-Zinn

http://www.amazon.com/Full-Catastrophe- ... 85303122#_

It is the classic book on meditation that is adapted to modern life. Many people value very highly the work of Kabat-Zinn. I thought the book has interesting ideas but those ideas are buried in too much verbiage. There are 100s of pages to describe concepts that could be summarized in a booklet.

I read this book many years ago and also took a six-week course on "mindfulness meditation" for stress and pain reduction. I found both very useful for managing my stress response and my pain and to this day use some of the techniques I learned.

At pp. 188 - 190 of the book there is a fascinating true story about the power of the mind to heal (or not, in this case). An elderly patient with manageable heart disease thought that she had overheard her doctor tell some interns that she was "terminal". The doctor had told the interns that the patient was "TS", which the patient understood meant "terminal situation". In fact, "TS" meant "tricuspid stenosis", a nonfatal heart condition. Nonetheless, the patient had an immediate stress reaction to the doctor's words which eventually killed her. The story demonstrates both the power both of a patient's belief and trust in a doctor, and of the power of a patient's stress response to illness.

The book comes with a set of CDs to guide meditation. Dr. Kabat-Zinn's voice (on the CDs) is incredibly soothing.

Thanks for the recommendation. I've requested the book from my local library.

Emily B.