Good books about complementary therapies

Question: My book club is interested in reading about complementary medicine.  We love nonfiction, biography, and self-help texts.  Can you suggest some engaging books?

Answer: Dr Mary Jo Kreitzer, the founder and director of the Center for Spirituality & Healing, writes:  One of the great things about being in a book club (aside from the fantastic snacks and socializing!) is the opportunity to discuss a challenging or enlightening text with a group of other thinkers and readers. Simply hearing your fellow club members’ responses and insights, whether you agree with them or not, often helps you “digest” the book on a deeper level. 

Here is just a sampling of seminal, accessible texts for your book club to enjoy:

Joan Borysenko, PhD
Minding the Body, Mending the Mind

Larry Dossey, MD
Reinventing Medicine: Beyond Mind-Body to a New Era of Healing
Healing Words: The Power of Prayer and the Practice of Medicine

Tracy W. Gaudet, MD
Consciously Female: How to Listen to Your Body and Your Soul for a Lifetime of Healthier Living

Mimi Guarneri, MD
The Heart Speaks:  A Cardiologist Reveals the Secret Language of Healing

Jerome Groopman, MD
The Anatomy of Hope: How Patients Prevail in the Face of Illness

John Kabat-Zinn, PhD
Full Catastrophic Living

Richard Leider
The Power of Purpose
Claiming Your Place at the Fire: Living the Second Half of Your Life on Purpose

Michael Lerner, MD
Choices in Healing: Integrating the Best of Conventional and Alternative Approaches to Cancer

Bill Moyers
Healing and the Mind 

Christiane Northrup, MD
Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom: Creating Physical and Emotional Health and Healing 

Candace Pert, PhD
Molecules of Emotion: Why You Feel the Way You Feel

Rachel Naomi Remen, MD
Kitchen Table Wisdom: Stories that Heal

Bernie Siegel, MD
Love, Medicine, and Miracles: Lessons Learned about Self-Healing from a Surgeon’s Experience with Exceptional Patients

Andrew Weil, MD
Health and Healing
Healthy Aging