Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness [Anglais] [Broché]

Kabat-Zinn, founder of the Stress Reduction Clinic at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center, is perhaps the best-known proponent of using meditation to help patients deal with illness. (The somewhat confusing title is from a line in Zorba the Greek in which the title character refers to the ups and downs of family life as "the full catastrophe.") But this book is also a terrific introduction for anyone who has considered meditating but was afraid it would be too difficult or would include religious practices they found foreign. Kabat-Zinn focuses on "mindfulness," a concept that involves living in the moment, paying attention, and simply "being" rather than "doing." While you can practice anything "mindfully," from taking a walk to cleaning your house, Kabat-Zinn presents several meditation techniques that focus the attention most clearly, whether it's on a simple phrase, your breathing, or various parts of your body. The book goes into detail about how hospital patients have either improved their health or simply come to feel better despite their illness by using these techniques, but these meditations can help anyone deal with stress and gain a calmer outlook on life. "When we use the word healing to describe the experiences of people in the stress clinic, what we mean above all is that they are undergoing a profound transformation of view," Kabat-Zinn writes. "Out of this shift in perspective comes an ability to act with greater balance and inner security in the world." --Ben Kallen

Kabat-Zinn is founder and director of the stress reduction program at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center, and the "full catastrophe" of which he writes is the spectrum of stress in life. His program, in a word, is meditation, rescued from the mire of mysticism that made it trendy in the 1960s. The author focuses on the advantages of employing "practiced mindfulness" to control and calm our responses without blunting our feelings--and a more convincing introduction to the many modes and uses of meditation could hardly be imagined. In personable, enlightening prose, Kabat-Zinn first explains how to develop a meditation schedule, and in later chapters pragmatically applies his plan to the main sources of stress. An impressive middle section clearly marshals scientific and anecdotal evidence relating state of mind to state of health. And while emphasizing meditation's healing potential, Kabat-Zinn makes no sweeping claims, suggesting that the discipline serve not as means but end. Illustrations not seen by PW. BOMC and QPB selection.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc. --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre.

Featured on Bill Moyer's PBS special Healing and the Mind, this practical guide to mindfulness, meditation and healing from the author of the bestselling Wherever You Go, There You Are is a classic in the field of alternative medicine.

The founder of the Stress Reduction Program at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center explains how to use "mindfulness"--moment-to-moment awareness--to cope with both illness and the everyday tensions encountered in life.

Featured on Bill Moyer's PBS special Healing And The Mind, this practical guide to mindfulness, meditation and healing from the author of the bestselling Wherever You Go, There You Are is a classic in the field of alternative medicine.

Jon Kabat-Zinn, Ph.D. is Professor of Medicine emeritus at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, where he was founding executive director of the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society, and founder (in 1979) and former director of its world-renowned Stress Reduction Clinic. His work has contributed to a growing movement of mindfulness into mainstream institutions in our society such as medicine, health care and hospitals, schools, corporations, prisons, and professional sports. In addition to Full Catastrophe Living, Kabat-Zinn's books include Wherever You Go, There You Are and Everyday Blessings. They have been translated into over fifteen foriegn languages, including German, Japanese, Italian, Dutch, French, Spanish, Russian, Portugese, Hebrew and Korean. His series of Mindfulness Meditation Practice tapes were created to be used in conjunction with Full Catastrophe Living and Wherever You Go. Dr. Kabat-Zinn lives in Lexington, Massachussets.