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Touch therapies | Energy | Health and Illness | Spirituality | Psychology, Therapy and Body Psychotherapy | Trauma | Other good books My favourite books of all time These two could sit in almost any category below and have been very influential for me. They are also a fantastic read - written as the author's account of his personal journey with several key teachers, rather than as a 'dry' factual account of his understanding and integration of matters such as body mechanics, spirit, energy, health and disease, healing, interpersonal interactions, psychology, love, compassion and much more. The books were written in the order they are presented here, and I read them in this sequence, but the second could probably be read before the first without too much difficulty. The author is Daniel Santos, and the books are 'Luminous Essence' and 'Feng Shui for the Body'. There are few books on biodynamic massage/biodynamic psychotherapy; Peg Nunneley's 'The Biodynamic Philosophy and Treatment of Psychosomatic Conditions (Volume 1 and Volume 2) are not entirely suitable for the lay reader, are relatively expensive and may take some time to get hold of, however may be of interest. As a basic introduction to the importance of touch, Phyllis Davis's 'The Power of Touch' is a suitable recommendation. Ashley Montegu's 'Touching' is a more 'researched' text, however is rather long (in fact, I have yet to finish it myself). 'Compassionate Touch' by Clyde W Ford is a lovely book, albeit with a rather more psychotherapeutic emphasis - maybe more for those interested in a way of exploring a person's responses to touch in a safe and non-threatening manner. John Hamwee's Energy Medicine' provides a good introduction to energy in the body, albeit predominantly from the point of view of Chinese medicine and therefore (for me) providing of a more mental than body-based understanding. Fritz Smith's 'Inner Bridges' is also an easy to read book which introduces a reader to the concept of body energy in a less clinical orientation than Hamwee's. Also potentially life enhancing are the likes of Brian Snellgrove's 'The Magic in your Hands' and Barefoot Doctor's 'Handbook for the Urban Warrior' and 'Return of the Urban Warrior'. The Doc's 'Liberation' is also highly recommended, and the more recent 'Manifesto' - which I have lent to more than one client in my practice. For those into tai chi/chi kung, BK Frantzis's 'Opening the Energy Gates of Your Body' is well worth playing with. His approach to the internal martial arts is described in a way accessible to both those already familiar with Eastern approaches to the body and those who have a more 'conventional' upbringing. He also has published excellent books on Tai Chi (an introductory text which also offers depth for more experienced practitioners), the Power of the Internal Martial Arts (a more specilist book), and Taoist meditation (Relaxing into your Being and The Great Stillness). Having studied with him, I wish he would bring out something on Taoist Chi Kung Tuina healing! Kosta Danaos's 'The Magus of Java' and its follow up 'Nei Kung' are also interesting and entertaining books in this vein - and, for those of you who see martial arts as merely a vehicle for fighting or violence, do read Alex Kosma's 'Esoteric Warriors' or Lowenthal's 'There are No Secrets'. Moving into the realm of chakras, I personally found Barbara Brennan's 'Hands of Light' a bit heavy going (though it is also a key text, and I don't regret having bought a copy). My progression through Ambika Wauters' 'Chakras and their Archetypes, followed by Caroline Myss' 'Anatomy of the Spirit' and lastly Anodea Judith's 'Eastern Body, Western Mind' however made the whole area much more understandable. Why do we get ill? Caroline Myss (see above) has her own somewhat esoteric views, though these are often rather too critically phrased for my liking. Paul Martin's 'The Sickening Mind' is more suited to those with a grounding in scientific thinking; 'The Healing Power of Illness (Deflethson and Dahlke) is a highly read book which, personally, I did not find highly readable. These texts are written from a Western perspective, however I am also very interested in Chinese medicine. Angela Hicks' 'Five Laws for Healthy Living' offers advice for improving general health as well as specific suggestions for individual conditions. She also co-authored 'Healing your Emotions' with husband John Hicks; this book introduces the Five Elements and offers a host of NLP (neuro-linguistic programming) and Chi Kung exercises to help you deal with difficult emotions. I also highly recommend you take a look at Worsley's 'Classical Five Element Acupuncture' though it's expensive and not always easy to get hold of, although the Hicks, together with Peter Mole, have now published an excellent textbook which is highly readable, 'Five Element Constitutional Acupuncture' which is both cheaper and better organised and presented (though intended for acupuncturists or acupuncture students). The last book from the Hicks stable worth a mention is John's lovely book 'Chinese Herbal Medicine' which is a real treat to read (predictably, for anyone who knows John as the inspirational teacher that he is). Other books for those interested in acupuncture are Kaptchuk's 'Web without a Weaver', a paperback book describing Chinese Medicine in a very ordered yet also sympathetic and easy to read fashion; the Bienfield's 'Between Heaven and Earth' - and perhaps Claude Larre's 'The Way of Heaven', which runs through the first two chapters of the Nei Jing Su Wen, detailing the Chinese view of health and of mankind's tendency to veer away from a natural way of life. If it were not so expensive, I would also push readers towards Lonny Jarrett's 'Nourishing Destiny' - an inspirational book talking about the inner tradition of Chinese medicine, from a Taoist perspective (or at least from Jarrett's interpretation of Taoism, with which I do not always agree myself!). It is not long since 'spirituality' meant absolutely nothing to me, however in recent years I have explored this area a lot - finding that I have resonance with Buddhist (predominantly Zen) and Taoist approaches. Spirituality is often regarded as something hugely special and even remote from everyday life, but this is not my viewpoint; spiritual paths are about being fully present to the world as it is - here and now - and being able to respond to it in a way true to one's inner nature rather than from conditioning and/or mental reasoning. 'The truth' is available to us all if only we are able to awaken to it from our customary egoistic trance. Buddhist books like the Tibetan Buddhist Pema Chodron's 'When Things Fall Apart - Heart Advice for Difficult Times', and Buddhist psychiatrist Dr Marc Epstein's 'Going to Pieces Without Falling Apart - A Buddhist Perspective on Wholeness' and 'Thoughts Without a Thinker' have been very useful to me. 'Bones of the Master' (George Crane) is a true account of the author's travels to Mongolia with Ch'an Buddhist master friend, Tsung Tsai. It gives many insights into the gentle compassion of this spiritual path; Ch'an is the forerunner to the more well known Zen, and accounts from a recent Ch'an retreat are given in Master Sheng-Yen's 'Illuminating Silence'. A highly readable author on Zen, also writing in an autobiographical manner, is Janwillem de Wetering ('The Empty Mirror', 'Glimpses of Nothingness' and 'Afterzen') - but Brad Warner's more recent 'Hardcore Zen' would be a better introduction (though not just a little zany/punk!). Going a little deeper as introductions would be Suzuki's 'Zen Mind Beginners Mind' or Katagiri's 'You have to say something'. If you are after more traditional texts then, for clarity and conciseness, Takuan Soho's writings on swordsmanship, published in a slim volume 'The Unfettered Mind' are excellent. I also liked Cleary's 'Zen Essence', Paul Reps 'Zen Flesh, Zen Bones' and Dogen/Uchiyama's 'From the Zen Kitchen to Enlightenment' (anything by Dogen will however be worthwhile). Fans of poetry will surely love Ryokan's 'Dewdrops on a Lotus Leaf' for their simplicity and directness. A modern day teacher whose spiritual upbringing was based within the Zen tradition is Adyashanti (see teachings on-line at www.adyashanti.org ; his book 'My Secret is Silence' is excellent and I suspect so are his others. I have recently discovered the writings of Thomas Merton (1915-69); 'Zen and the Birds of Appetite' is a series of essays linking Christianity with Zen which I hope 'Mystics and Zen Masters' will build on. 'The Tao of Pooh' (Benjamin Hoff) has surely to be the best introduction to Taoism, told with help from Pooh Bear and his friends (Eeyore, Piglet et al). Most would consider Lao Tzu's 'Tao Te Ching' (Classic of the Way and Virtue) and 'The Book of Chuang Tzu' to be the 'best' traditional Taoist texts, but I find 'Yuan Dao - Tracing Dao to its Source', chapter one of the Huainanzi, much more approachable. It's an overview of the early phase of Taoism accompanied by a slightly heavy but very useful commentary by translators Roger Ames and DC Lau. 'Lieh Tzu' (my translation is by Graham), 'Lui I-Ming', 'Wen Tzu' (my translations are by Clary) or 'Seven Taoist Masters' (translated by Eva Wong) are also good. Seven Taoist Masters is a historic, 'storybook-style' introduction to Taoism, but Deng Ming Dao's 'Chronicles of Tao' are a more up-to-date version, following the progress of one man from boyhood to the status of Master. Lastly, to illustrate the practical worth of Taoism, 'Grace Unfolding' relates the teachings of the 'Tao Te Ching' to the work of a psychotherapist. I can't not mention Cleary's translation of 'The Secret of the Golden Flower'. Not a book for beginners and requiring some effort to demystify (with many jumps between the translation and the translator's notes), it is well worth the effort - drawing on both Buddhist (Ch'an) and Taoist influences. Cleary's damning comments about Jung's theories, due to an earlier (and, for Clearly, misguided) translation of this text (by Wilhelm) which was a great influence on him, are especially interesting. Eckhart Tolle's 'The Power of Now', Jack Kornfield's 'After the Ecstasy, The Laundry' and the books of Steven Russell (e.g. 'Being One - Finding your Self in Relationship' or 'Doing Nothing - Coming to the End of the Spiritual Path') are also books I recommend - being unrelated to any particular religion. Tolle in particular has a talent for evoking within the reader a true sense of his message - to bring one into 'the now'. I have recently bought a tranche of books on Advaita/non-duality teachings and will add to this list once I have got through them! For animal lovers, J Allen Boone's rather quaint 'Kinship With All Life' is a suitable introduction to matters spiritual, albeit will I think not be to everyone's taste. Psychology, Therapy and Body Psychotherapy The first book I read on psychology was Robin Skynner' and John Cleese's very easy to read 'Families and How to Survive Them'. It is certainly a good book to start with. A very different book offering insights into the therapist-client relationship, and how progress is achieved in therapy, is Kahn's 'Between Therapist and Client' - though may require a basic grounding in psychological theory. Other favourites in a similarly traditional psychology vein include the books of Alice Miller, which I have returned to time and time again (e.g. The Drama of Being a Child). Arthur Janov's 'The Biology of Love' which offers probably enough of an insight into primal therapy for the reader to not necessarily need to bother with the likes of 'The New Primal Scream' (unless, that is, they are particularly interested), whilst also including a lot of fascinating stuff about neuroscience and brain function as it pertains to psychotherapy. I liked RD Laing's 'The Divided Self' very much, though this may say more about me than necessarily making it a book that everyone will necessarily enjoy. I have some reservations about NLP, but will pay homage to it with Dilts and McDonald's 'Tools of the Spirit', which for me has a more open minded and compassionate approach than many others from this discipline. On a totally different note, two books worth a look if you are about to embark on a course of study: Thomas Armstrong's '7 Kinds of Smart' or Ricki Linksman's 'How to Learn Anything Quickly' offer useful insights about left/right brain function and the ways in which one most easily acquires and stores information. Another 'self-help' classic, 'Feel the Fear and do it Anyway' by Susan Jeffers offers inspiration to get up and do all the things you long to do but haven't quite managed to gear yourself up for. So, to body psychotherapy. Totton's 'Body Psychotherapy' and Staunton's 'Body Psychotherapy' may share titles but do not really repeat one another and I cannot really push interested parties towards one over the other. Totton's is however more suited to the lay reader/potential therapy client, whereas Staunton's authors each describe different aspects of their work more specifically for a therapeutic audience. Lowen's 'Bioenergetics' is a relatively slim and inexpensive volume which provides a useful introduction to body psychotherapy within his particular 'school', as does 'Lifestreams' for David Boadella's way of working (though this is sadly out of print and not easy to find). 'Getting in Touch' (edited Christine Caldwell) gives fairly detailed introductions to many therapies working with the body-mind connection, albeit many of them not perhaps actually labelling themselves as a 'psychotherapy' as such. Our bodies 'give us away' - you can read a lot about a person from their body. Kurtz and Prestera's 'The Body Reveals' is a lovely book however also sadly out of print. A close second (and more suited to the casual reader) is Ken Dychtwald's 'Bodymind' which also discusses the ways in which different therapeutic modalities (reflexology, rolfing, feldenkreis etc.) work to achieve change. Kelemann's 'Emotional Anatomy' has very many beautiful drawings and is a book much loved by some of my fellow students, however I found it a little heavy going. Peter Levine's 'Waking the Tiger' is a - perhaps the - classic on traum and, I believe, suitable for anyone to read. I also very much like Heller's 'Crash Course' even though it targets victims of car crashes ... Larry Heller teaches alongside Levine on Somatic Experiencing Trainings and I went on a course with him in Dublin. He is a great teacher. Babette Rothschild's 'The Body Remembers' is also worth a visit - easy to read, however I will forewarn you that at some stage I turned a page expecting more text and suddenly found, to my surprise, that the book had ended. William Redpath's 'Trauma Energetics' (I have also briefly trained with him) is not a very easy read but may be worth the effort if you are interested in this area (Redpath's approach stems from that of Peter Levine). Lucy Grealy's 'Autobiography of a Face' deals with her struggle to deal with childhood cancer and facial deformity. Abraham Vergese's 'The Tennis Partner' and 'My Country' are also very touching autobiographical accounts; Vergese is an infectious diseases specialist who observes and describes people in a highly perceptive and touching manner. 'The Movement of Mountains' (Michael Blumlein) is very much more sci-fi/fictional but also has a medical theme, for me somewhat mixed with spirituality and pertinent questions about modern society the direction it is taking. I also very much enjoyed the classic 'Anatomy of an Illness as told by the patient' by Cousins ... an inspiring way of working with the patient-doctor relationship and how it affects healing. Paulo Coelho's 'The Alchemist' is a book I have read several times cover to cover in one sitting - an indicator of its power to captivate. It's not for everybody, however; I lent it to a friend who was left rather 'none the wiser' and relatively untouched. He did, however, find another of Coelho's bestsellers very affecting; 'Veronica Decides to Die'. Continuing with my Chinese interests, 'Wild Swans' by Jung Chang - whilst a mammoth tomb - is also well worth a read; a tale of three generations of women in China and a real eye-opener to the progression of this nation. Adeline Yen Mah's 'Falling Leaves' is similarly affecting; a true tale describing her life as the 'fifth daughter' in a truly extraordinary family. She has also written 'Watching the Tree' which is a lovely introduction to many aspects of Chinese philosophy as it affects modern Chinese society. Jann Martel's 'Life of Pi' is an extraordinary fictional book which I have recently read for the second time and very much enjoyed; the author says it's 'a story to make you believe in God'! Also fictional, but more 'true to life', is the oddly titled 'The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time', describing life as experienced by a boy with autism. It rather 'did my head in' but was well worth reading. Also in the 'doing your head in' category is the last of my Barefoot Doctor recommendations, 'Twisted Fables for Twisted Minds', strictly to be read in a somewhat carefree and generous hearted context, however containing a good dose of Taoist medicine within the wittily constructed lines. Lastly, nobody should be without 'The Little Book of Hugs' (Kathleen Keating). Enjoy! Vicki Martin, April 2004 |
