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Principles of Holistic Medicine: Quality of Life And Health

by Isack Kandel, Joav Merrick and Soren Ventegodt

378 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #05-2481; ISBN 1-4120-7586-6; US$30.50, C$35.07, EUR25.05, £17.54

Based on work done in Denmark we make the argument that knowing the meaning of your own life and living accordingly is the real source of health and well-being.

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About the Book

About the Author

Excerpts

Catalogue Information

About the Book

This book is the result of several years of research conducted in Denmark on the quality of life of more than 10,000 Danes. Quality of life (QOL) and health are not the same. QOL is the state of being or existence of the person, while health is the state of body, mind and spirit. QOL is the state of your totality, your wholeness. QOL is influenced to some degree by our health, but much more, according to contemporary scientific knowledge, by a few core dimensions of life related to love, consciousness, gender and sexuality. In this book you will find the following:

Theory of holistic healing, existential holistic group therapy
• Group intervention, therapeutic touch as a classic art of healing
• Tools for holistic medicine, biomedicine and the physician today
• Lifestyle, health, psychoactive drugs, sex and quality of life
• Chronic illness, pain, alcoholism, whiplash associated disorder
• Coronary heart disease, cancer, HIV and quality of life

The improvement of personal philosophy of life seems to be the essence of holistic medicine and helping the patient to assume more responsibility.

This book is published by Hippocrates Scientific Publications, New Hyde Park, New York and distributed by Traford Publishing, Victoria, BC, Canada

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About the Author

Søren Ventegodt, MD, born 1961 in Denmark is the director of the Nordic School of Holistic Health and Quality of Life Research Center in Copenhagen, Denmark. He is also responsible for a Clinical Research Clinic for Holistic Medicine in Copenhagen and used as a popular speaker throughout Scandinavia. He has published numerous scientific or popular articles and a number of books on holistic medicine, quality of life and quality of working life. His most important scientific contributions are the comprehensive SEQOL questionnaire, the very short QOL5 questionnaire, the integrated QOL theory, the holistic process theory, the life mission theory, and the ongoing Danish Quality of Life Research Survey, 1991-94 in cooperation with the University Hospital of Copenhagen and the late professor of pediatrics, Bengt Zachau-Christiansen, MD, PhD. E-Mail: ventegodt@livskvalitet.org Website: www.livskvalitet.org/.

Isack Kandel, MA, PhD, born 1944 in Bogata, Columbia is senior lecturer at the Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Behavioral Sciences, the Academic College of Judea and Samaria, Ariel, Israel. During the period 1985-93 he served as the director of the Division for Mental Retardation, Ministry of Social Affairs, Jerusalem, Israel. E-mail: kandelii@zahav.net.il.

Joav Merrick, MD, DMSc, born in 1950 in Denmark is professor of child health and human development affiliated with the Center for Multidisciplinary Research in Aging, Zusman Child Development Center, Division of Pediatrics and Community Health at the Ben Gurion University, Beer-Sheva, Israel, the medical director of the Division for Mental Retardation, Ministry of Social Affairs, Jerusalem, the founder and director of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. Numerous publications in the field of child health and human development, rehabilitation, intellectual disability, disability, health, welfare, abuse, advocacy, quality of life and prevention. Received the Peter Sabroe Child Award for outstanding work on behalf of Danish Children in 1985 and the International LEGO-Prize ("The Children's Nobel Prize") for an extraordinary contribution towards improvement in child welfare and well-being in 1987. E-Mail: jmerrick@internet-zahav.net. Website: www.nichd-israel.com.

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Excerpts

Quality of life (QOL) and health are not the same. QOL is the state of being or existence of the person, while health is the state of body, mind and spirit. QOL is the state of your totality, your wholeness. QOL is influenced to some degree by our health, but much more, according to contemporary scientific knowledge, by a few core dimensions of life related to love, consciousness, gender and sexuality. So if someone for example gets cancer and become very sick, if this person improve the ability to love, understand and enjoy, the QOL can also be improved, in spite of being very ill. In doing so this person might even improve the health also. Actually, it seems that if you grasp the secrets of life, if you connect to your inner wisdom, you might even be able to cure yourself.

Spontaneous healing is connected to the recovery of existential coherence. The gain of coherence can be a slow arduous process, or it can be a much more speedy transformation of your whole character and existence, if you dare to challenge your own philosophy of life and develop what we could call "deep cosmology" or an understanding of life that is rich in concepts on the subjective life. To explore our inner realms and dare to confront, and make friends with the deepest structures in brain-mind, body-mind, and soul - this is really what it takes. But we have so many difficult emotions connected to body and mind; so little self esteem, so little confidence, so little love for ourselves. These inhibitions will often limit us being able to really improve QOL, when a serious disease has arrived. Only the most efficient of medicine will now be relevant. We must therefore make holistic medicine efficient and speedy, which is really what our efforts are all about.

Prevention is so much better than cure and personal development is really a possibility by using the concepts of holistic medicine. Development of talent and personal value seems to be the most efficient of all tools for improving QOL, health and general ability of functioning. Talent is coming from realising it within ourselves. We all have one primary talent and only after finding and using this, can we really blossom as people.

When we are creating value to other people and ourselves we are realising our self. We are living the life we were meant to be from the very beginning. It is our hope that every physician and therapist will have the development of talent as their primary focus, whenever they are involved with the art of helping.

"Give a man a fish and you have made his day; teach the man how to fish and you have made every day of his life" is an old Chinese saying. Teaching the patient how to fish is really what holistic medicine is about. And only deep and profound knowledge of life will make us able to do that. That is what scientific holistic medicine is developed for.

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Catalogue Information

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