Faith, Hope, and Healing: Inspiring Lessons Learned from People Living with Cancer

This book is great for cancer patients. A must read. Dr. Siegel is an exceptional teacher. He combined the best of both world: spirituality and science.I truely enjoyed this book.

The thought of cancer strikes fear into the hearts of most people. Yet many who have gone through the process of healing have found that the cancer taught them something important about themselves that they needed to discover. Dr. Bernie Siegel has compiled some of these inspiring stories of survivors and caregivers of cancer patients in faith, hope & healing. Broken down into three sections -- faith, hope and healing -- people who have gone through the process of dealing with cancer in themselves or loved ones share their stories. After each, Dr. Siegel shares his thoughts on how they may have helped or hindered their journey through recovery. Dr. Siegel is one of the pioneers in using words and thoughts to facilitate healing, and knows how powerful an inspiring message can be for someone who's still in the midst of recovery. In reading these wonderfully uplifting true stories, you'll find some of the faith and hope that others discovered, which may help in your own healing process. Reviewer: Alice Berger

Bernie Siegel is a wonderful healer, his words bringing inspiration and solace through the stories shared in this heartwarming book. I was reminded of a story Bernie likes to tell about the start of his career in providing support and nurturing to women with breast cancer - as I read this collection of reports from 32 people who learned to deal with their cancers as teachers and inner healers. Bernie was distressed to find that many of the women he treated as a surgeon had no source of support outside their stressed families for dealing with their health challenges and the emotional turmoil they encountered - both from the cancers and from the medical treatments. Bernie invited a group of people who had undergone cancer surgery to meet regularly in his office in a support group.He found that the best way he could contribute was to let these people share their issues with each other and find support from each other, and to keep as quiet himself as he possibly could. In this book there are stories of men and women, young and old, and a few as well of children who tell their experiences of dealing with cancers. For anyone who is challenged with cancer, this book brings the wonderful gift of hope. With the help, encouragement and support of the author, many of these people were able to arrive at a place of peace and inspiration, living their lives much more fully and meaningfully as a result of their experiences of dealing with cancer.

I consider it an unarguable point that people who are optimistic in the face of serious illness tend to respond better to treatment and live longer and healthier lives. However, this is a statistic fact, not an individual one. It is also obvious that some people spontaneously overcome their cancerous growths in a manner completely unexplainable by medical science. However, I tend to take an extremely skeptical view of books that tend to be overly energetic in promoting natural healing due to faith and hope. While faith and hope are very important in promoting cures, they work so much better when they are accompanied by some serious medical ammunition. The line between the legitimate and illegitimate promotion of faith and hope cures is approached in this book but not crossed. It is a series of testimonials from people that were diagnosed with cancer and have been able to generate great strength and improve their chances via the use of positive thinking. That positive thinking was reinforced by chemotherapy and radiation so in many cases the positive thinking was a driving force in getting them through the secondary illness from their treatment. After each testimonial there is a brief statement from Dr. Siegel, giving his impressions of the testimonial. In some cases the statement is a legitimate extension but in others it could have been left out with no real loss. The most powerful, uplifting and beneficial statements to cancer sufferers come from cancer survivors and these messages are often so powerful that any postscript written by another seems weak. Sometimes the best message that you can receive when facing adversity is an existence proof that it is possible to survive and perhaps even benefit from it. That inspiring message is repeated many times in this book and some of them are very moving.

Helpful for anyone living with cancer, just diagnosed and all family and friends of anyone with the disease. Caring, real and insightful.