UCSF and University of Arizona School of Medicine
Author of The Best Alternative Medicine: What Works? What Does Not?
“A realization is dawning for millions of Americans: If we are to be our healthiest, we must rely on our own inner resources. BODYMIND HEALING PSYCHOTHERAPY will help anyone discover and manifest his or her healing potential. This book is a dazzling accomplishment…a thrilling blueprint for the integration of body, mind, and spirit.”
Author of Reinventing Medicine
“This scholarly and eminently readable book integrates eastern and western forms of self-healing techniques and examines the capacity of various approaches that put human beings at the center of their own self-care. I applaud Dr Michael Mayer for his monumental work, which hopefully foreshadows the shape of body-mind approaches for years to come.”
Medical Director, The Trauma Center, Boston University School of Medicine
Past Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard University
Currently Professor of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine
Past President, International Society of Traumatic Stress Studies
Co-principal Investigator for the DSM IV Field Trial for PTSD
“BODYMIND HEALING PSYCHOTHERAPY is a unique addition to the literature on psychological therapy and healing. The procedures described in Michael Mayer’s splendid book are truly integrative. Not only to they embrace mind and body, East and West, and physical and mental sicknesses, they coordinate external therapy with internal healing. The result is a process that goes deeply into the human psyche, one that seeks for lasting change rather than a superficial removal of symptoms. The latter approach may be a quick fix, but a temporary one, something that will not satisfy Dr. Mayer or the readers who work their way through his book.”
Professor of Psychology, Saybrook Graduate School
“The most characteristic and self-renewing quality of any organism is its energy, and any true healing of the human organism requires both patient and practitioner to attend to the implications of that fact. Michael Mayer’s conviction that energy is what joins body to mind informs his determination as a psychotherapist to redeem that junction, and he offers tools that really work to enhance and enliven it. There is wise caring in this search for contemporary ways to achieve the sublime goal of both Eastern and Western traditions of therapeutic practice: a healthy mind in a healthy body.”
Jungian analyst, author of Integrity in Depth.
Past President of the C. G. Jung Institute of San Francisco
“The most comprehensive study of the therapy scene and more that exists. Dr Mayer has done a brilliant job integrating all aspects of all schools of thought as well as techniques of mind/body healing.”
Author of The Dark Side of Love
“The past decade has seen a creative explosion in the integration of ancient healing practices with modern psychotherapy. Michael Mayer provides an ambitious and welcome map for psychotherapists and other healers wishing to embark upon the life-changing journey of adapting these traditions into their own practices.”
Author of The Mythic Path and Energy Psychology Interactive
“Around 1970, we in the West began our encounter with Eastern thought and traditions. The profound significance of this expansion of our worldview is now becoming evident thanks in part to people like Dr. Mayer, a psychologist who has deeply and critically explored the Eastern path to mastery and healing. Now, drawing on his 30 years of Tai Chi and Qigong practice, his explorations of ancient healing in China and Greece, his familiarity with Jung and Gendlin, and his grasp of new integrative therapies like energy psychology, Dr. Mayer provides us with a contemporary and practical integration of these paths. Bodymind Healing Psychotherapy should be read and studied by everyone who is interested in activating our untapped human potential for healing.”
“Michael Mayer’s practical synthesis and deep knowledge of Qigong and Tai Chi movement forms has greatly impressed me during my years administering the Esalen Institute Movement Arts Program. Michael traces the roots of these practices back to their origins and presents a very usable as well as spiritual approach to these ancient and very valuable systems. He stands out among the many teachers I’ve met and practiced with and has provided me with insights available from no other teacher.”
Coordinator, Movement Arts Program
And last, but certainly not least, my Sifu Fong Ha, Internationally-Renowned Master of Tai Chi Chuan and Yi Chuan Qigong says:
“In the nineteen seventies Dr. Michael Mayer began his study of Tai Chi Chuan and Qigong with me in Berkeley, California. With continuous diligence, devotion and skill he grows and ages with me as faithful student and friend. It delights my eyes and warms my heart to witness the masterful way Dr. Mayer integrates the ancient wisdom of East with the psychotherapy of the West.”
One who practices Tai Chi and Qigong
A review of Bodymind Healing Psychotherapy: Ancient pathways to Modern Health, Review by Michael Gilewski, PsycCritiques. The journal PsycCritiques., produced by PsychInfo, a division of the American Psychological Association, is “the most comprehensive and authoritative publisher of bibliographic reference sources that cover scholarly and peer-reviewed publications in psychology and related disciplines.”
Bodymind Healing Psychotherapy: Ancient Pathways to Modern Health offers valuable and practical demonstrations of the principles behind psychological contributions to healing and medicine… A refreshing alternative to necessary treatment manuals, psychological handbooks, and journal articles. Rather than only expanding one’s knowledge or skill, one embarks on a journey with this book to expand one’s larger sense of self, one’s experience, one’s appreciation for the world and people, and one’s knowledge and skill as well… There are numerous persons with illnesses who can benefit from such approaches. The key for a scientific revolution to be successful is that the new must explain the old. In this instance, it is the “old” methods of healing that come to explain the “modern medicine.”Keeping in Touch, Journal of the United States Association for Body Psychotherapy, Fall 2007.Review of Bodymind Healing Psychotherapy: Ancient Pathways to Modern Health.
Drawing on his 30 years of experience with Tai Chi/Qigong and with psychotherapy, the author provides an in-depth integration of both theory and techniques, illustrated with numerous case vignettes. An intriguing example of such integration is a section entitled “Enhance Your Stance: Melanie Klein’s ‘Depressive Position’ and Qigong.”
Amazon Verified Purchase
This is an amazing text! It integrates so much information from the entire field of body-mind healing. I’ve used energy psychology in my clinical practice for the past 10 years and yet I learned so much from Michael Mayer’s treatment of this one subject. However, his book is an amazing resource of information and practical application of all facets of mind-body healing. Therapists interested in learning about mind-body healing will find a wealth of information here and lay people who want to help themselves will be able to understand it as well, since it is all presented so clearly and beautifully. It clarifies so many issues in this often confusing field, allowing the user to move forward with confidence. This book is an obvious labor of love and very hard work.