Decoding the Secret Language of Your Body: The Many Ways Our Bodies Send Us Messages

The idea that emotions and health are interconnected is not new: for centuries, we've believed mind can influence body and emotions can dramatically affect health. But after 31 years as a psychiatrist, Rush, a former family physician, is convinced that signals from the body can provide valuable insight into our emotions. This book is based on his observation of more than 9000 group meetings and more than 40,000 individual psychotherapy sessions. The author freely admits that his conclusions remain to be substantiated or disproved by scientific methods. Nevertheless, he believes an emotional event corresponds to every illness, from stomach pains and headaches to cancer. ``Each time we become ill, it is likely that it was `caused' by some unhappiness or stress in our life,'' he explains. ``It made us feel bad, we couldn't handle it and our body expressed this through discomfort, pain or illness.'' The book translates the body's symptoms as either whispers (e.g., goose bumps), cries (e.g., nausea) or screams (e.g., asthma); Rush presents carpal tunnel syndrome as a severe manifestation of the fear of reaching for what one wants. The problem inherent in his view of the mind-body connection is that it seems to suggest that people are responsible for getting, as well as curing, their own diseases. (Dec.)