The Yoga of Healing

This is a special little book for those interested in understanding and integrating different systems of healing, especially yoga teachers, who often do not come from a health care background. First, there are short discussions from doctors and therapists from eight different systems, where they frankly and educationally discuss their frameworks, including strengths, weaknesses and when they would recommend patients see other practitioners using a a different approach. Several contributors are well trained in more than one speciality, hence giving extra depth to their perspective. Probing questions and observations by the authors guide the discussions, which are short, practical, informative and especially articulate. The second part of this book focuses on four common chronic conditions (asthma, backache, headache and high blood pressure) where panels of practitioners outline how they would begin to treat the problems. This is a very educational means of comparing approaches. This book has many wise observations about health care, including short insightful statments regarding the strengths of allopathic medicine and challenges of alternative systems. Of course, challenges to western health care are also well presented and accepted. The purpose of this book is better communication and better integration of the many systems for the benefit of all patients. This is an issue of increasing importance all over the world. In this regard, this book may have some special lessons for the the West, because India has more diversity in health care and perhaps more experience with integrating different systems. A good complement to this book is Health and Healing by Andrew Weil. For yoga teachers, another good companion is Yoga for Wellness by Gary Kraftsow.