The Healing Power of Illness

This classic book, long out of print in English, challenges accepted ideas of illness by suggesting it’s not an enemy to be fought. When you see your symptoms as bodily expressions of psychological or spiritual conflicts, you can use them as guides to inner work. You can respond to issues with respiration, digestion, skin, nervous system, heart and circulation, sexuality and pregnancy, or infection and allergies, even accidents, with practical actions that heal the heart and mind. As psychologists—one trained in spiritual traditions, the other in natural healing and psychotherapy—the authors use archetypical and interpretative medicine to demonstrate that just as every disease pattern expresses a certain content, every organ and every region of the body has a particular significance. The goal is that we can then build up a field of "contagious good health" and take control in finding our own life mission and path of development. In the German-speaking world, Ruediger Dahlke’s books have attracted a large following and have contributed to creating an ever-expanding consciousness for psychosomatic correlations and a holistic approach to medicine. There are over 200 translations of his books in 24 languages. You can listen to Dr. Dahlke speak with Dr. Jeanette Gallagher about the concepts in this book in an interview on her radio show.