A Path to Healing - Hardcover

Sullivan, Andrea

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0385485751 ISBN 13: 9780385485753

Publisher: Doubleday, 1998

Synopsis

Twenty years ago, at age twenty-nine, Andrea Sullivan was a high-level executive at HUD in a state of what she now calls "dis-ease": stressed out, thirty-pounds overweight, with a face full of acne. Moved by a desire to help her community and herself in a "meaningful way," she quit her job and decided to become a doctor. She applied and was accepted to Bastyr Medical School for Alternative Medicine and became a naturopathic physician.



Since then, Dr. Sullivan has been at the vanguard of naturopathic medicine and has helped hundreds of African Americans create dramatic and lasting lifestyle changes. Unlike traditional doctors, naturopathic physicians, with the aid of herbs, roots, and other natural remedies, treat the patient, not the disease.



Here, in easy-to-understand language, Dr. Sullivan provides an overview of alternative medicine (paying close attention to naturopathy), discusses the African American tradition and its link to naturopathic medicine, and delves into stress, high blood pressure, arthritis, obesity, depression, and diabetes (all problems that plague African Americans), and prescribes an overall guide to maintaining health and keeping disease at bay.



In A Path to Healing, Dr. Sullivan makes a convincing case for naturopathic medicine as the best way to prevent disease and treat chronic illnesses, while not discounting the use of traditional Western medicine, especially in cases of traumatic injury.

About this title

About the Author

Andrea Sullivan, N.D., lives and practices in Washington, D.C., is a member of several national homeopathic organizations, and is a founding member of the American Association of Naturopathic Physicians. She appears frequently on television and radio.


From the Trade Paperback edition.

From the Inside Flap

ago, at age twenty-nine, Andrea Sullivan was a high-level executive at HUD in a state of what she now calls "dis-ease": stressed out, thirty-pounds overweight, with a face full of acne. Moved by a desire to help her community and herself in a "meaningful way," she quit her job and decided to become a doctor. She applied and was accepted to Bastyr Medical School for Alternative Medicine and became a naturopathic physician.



Since then, Dr. Sullivan has been at the vanguard of naturopathic medicine and has helped hundreds of African Americans create dramatic and lasting lifestyle changes. Unlike traditional doctors, naturopathic physicians, with the aid of herbs, roots, and other natural remedies, treat the patient, not the disease.



Here, in easy-to-understand language, Dr. Sullivan provides an overview of alternative medicine (paying close attention to naturopathy), discusses the African American tradition and its link to naturo

Reviews

Sullivan is a naturopathic physician who uses a combination of nutrition, herbs, homeopathy, acupuncture, hydrotherapy, exercise and massage to "heal people, not diseases." She supplies detailed nutritional advice here, including her "ten-day detoxification diet" for beginning a healthier lifestyle, and blood-type diets for maintenance (for example, type As, she explains, tend to be analytical and anxious, and should be vegetarian). Through many specific case studies, Sullivan reveals that another large part of her practice is listening to her patients talk about themselves. Feelings of low self-worth, she contends, are at the root of many physical ailments, and learning of her patients' abusive relationships, bad childhoods or everyday stresses help her design an appropriate treatment for each individual. Sullivan, who is African American, claims that naturopathy works for everyone "regardless of color," but she focuses on "the most common and most damaging ailments that plague black America," including hypertension, diabetes, obesity, arthritis, addictions, HIV/AIDS and cancer. She also delivers a long diatribe on racism in "white America" and charges the CIA with developing and distributing HIV "for the purpose of reducing the world population, especially people of color." These ill-advised comments seem to contradict her "we are all children of God... one people" references, and may turn off readers to what is otherwise an unusual and provocative addition to the crowded shelf of wellness guides.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Homeopathy

One of the reasons I decided to go to graduate school to study sociology and psychology was that I wanted to have a better understanding of human behavior. I was in my early twenties, fresh out of college and a little naive about what I wanted to do with my life, although I knew I wanted to "save the world." I had a lot of unanswered questions about the way people acted--the way they responded to things and expressed themselves to one another. I thought that an advanced degree in a field which deals with the interaction of individuals would provide some of these answers.

Long before I made this decision, however, I had always wanted to believe there was more to me than my mind and emotions, my acquisitions and success. No matter how well I did in school, I still felt inadequate. No matter how many friends I made, I still felt separated and distant from them. I needed to make some sense of all the suffering in the world, including my own. I needed to know more about Truth, about the idea that there is something greater than man and his intellect.

I also wanted to rid myself of the sense of inferiority and pain I had accumulated as a black female in this country. I wanted to know more. I wanted to know who I was. I wanted an awareness of myself and how I fit into life. I wanted to understand others so that I might have more compassion and kindness. And I wanted the same for others.

But sociology didn't provide the answers. Nor did my job at the Department of Housing and Urban Development. It wasn't until I began studying natural medicine that I was able to find my true self--and along with that the Truth. As I mentioned in the Introduction, between my second and third year of naturopathic school, while traveling in the Holy Land, I discovered the soul, the part that is connected to the universal spirit that connects to us all. As the New Testament declares, the kingdom of heaven is within us. The true self focuses on the divinity within. It uses love and wisdom to create harmony with God's creations. We are all part of creation. We are made in God's image, and we have the right to be joyful, healthy, and wealthy. We deserve it. This new awareness helped me replace my false self, the self that harbored feelings of fear, insecurity, and pain. This awareness answered my many questions.

The false self is a great force, but not the greatest force. Opposites exist everywhere in nature, including the human psyche. Underneath the negativity of the false self is the positive nature of the true self. Likewise, with homeopathy, the remedies replace the unhealthy patterns and thoughts of the false self with those of the true self. Homeopathic remedies work to eliminate limitations and fixed ideas that make the individual more susceptible to disease.

George Vithoulkas is a world-renowned homeopath and was one of the first Europeans to revitalize homeopathy in North America. About health, in The Science of Homeopathy, Mr. Vithoulkas specifically says:

Health is freedom from pain in the physical body, having attained a state of well-being; freedom from passion on the emotional level, having as a result a dynamic state of serenity and calm; and freedom from selfishness in the mental sphere, having as a result total unification with Truth.

I was intrigued. Going to naturopathic school was a continuation of my search for Truth. I thought homeopathy was a way for myself and my patients to gain freedom and discover the Truth. I was right.

How does all of this talk about God, true self, and false self relate to homeopathy?

Let's begin with an understanding of the mental state. Our mental state is responsible for our memory, concentration, and creativity, among other things. A mental disturbance comes in a variety of different conditions and refers to more than just medical diagnoses like schizophrenia or manic depression. For example, a mental disturbance may make it difficult to express one's thoughts or to find the right word in conversation.

A mental disturbance may also hinder your consciousness. When you begin to lose awareness of yourself in relationship to others and the environment, the result is harmful behavior like selfishness or greed. Self-absorption and intolerance are other signs of this mental disturbance. We cannot know the Truth when we are operating out of self-advancement and egotism. Instead, we become oblivious to others' needs.

We usually know when we are mentally healthy. We are aware of being part of a greater whole. Our behavior is likely to be productive and fruitful. We pursue goals of health, happiness, wealth, and love. We encourage others to do the same. We have selfless creativity for ourselves and others. When we are well, we can give freely of ourselves from the overflow of who we are. When we are well, it hurts not to give.

Emotional wellness requires the ability to feel. When patients say they have no feeling about a situation or life experience, I find they have likely suppressed the feeling or disassociated from it because it is too painful. In order to survive emotionally, these patients have had to separate themselves from the experience, as if it happened to someone else. There is an Ethiopian proverb, "He who conceals his disease cannot expect to be cured." We should try not to hide that which is making us sick. Also, when we react to things in the past, we are unable to deal with things in the present and therefore become emotionally unhealthy. We need to be able to feel the range of emotions, from good to bad, to be healthy. When we have emotional freedom, we are able to experience our feelings and let go of them. We don't burden ourselves with one emotion. We become angry, for example, but it is an anger that is appropriate in degree and intensity for that situation. Emotional freedom enables us to return to a state of peace and calm.

On the other hand, physical health is much easier to assess. We are used to focusing on our physical condition when we are sick. Physicians have grown accustomed to focusing on physical disease, picking out individual organs to heal rather than the entire person. In fact, the medical establishment was so intent on dealing with physical symptoms, it did not recognize a connection between mind and body until recently. Yet most people would admit that conditions like fatigue, chronic headaches, or arthritis are closely connected to our emotional state. Physical health allows us to be energetic and pain-free and to experience a state of well-being.

Now, having a greater understanding of wellness and homeopathy, I believe it is the one medicine that touches deeply into a person, truly creating wellness on all levels, for the homeopathic remedies touch the soul.

Treating the Whole Person: Body, Mind, and Soul--An Acute Condition

Whether we believe a condition like arthritic pain makes one irritable and angry, or whether an angry and irritable nature contributes to arthritic pain, we cannot deny the connection between our natures and our bodies. Homeopaths view the person and the symptoms in a totality; and it is the totality of symptoms in a person that we treat. The homeopath will individualize a treatment by assessing the state and the nature of the patient in order to give the correct remedy. However, there are times when the physical symptoms are so overwhelming that they must be the focus for a homeopath. Following is an example of when a homeopath recognizes a patient's acute condition.

Not long ago a patient named Patricia called to say she thought the cold she had had for the past week was moving into her lungs. She felt weak and exhausted and had spiking fevers of 104 degrees. During our conversation I noted a hard, dry cough she said was painful. She had aches all over her back, but particularly in an area just above her kidneys. Even the slightest movement increased the pain in this area. While normally a loving and active mother with three children, Patricia was extremely irritable because of her illness.  She had barely eaten over the past few days, and complained of an intense and chronic thirst.

It was clear from the symptoms that Patricia's neglected cold had developed into pneumonia.

Homeopaths do not have one remedy for this condition. We have many remedies for people who have pneumonia. One of the options, bryonia (a plant known as wild hops), seemed to fit all of the patient's physical and emotional symptoms. I prescribed the remedy bryonia in 1M potency, which means the herbal tincture of bryonia was a 1:1000 (M) dilution and then diluted one more time (1)1. By the next day the patient was appreciably better. I repeated the bryonia 1M the third day and within the next week she was cheerful and healthy once again. Also on the third day, I prepared an herbal tincture of grindelia, lobelia, glycyrrhiza, phytolacca, and echinacea to be taken in 30-drop doses, four times a day. This combination of herbs acts as an immune stimulant, an antiviral, and an expectorant. Had her symptoms not been resolved by the third day, I would have referred her to a medical doctor for antibiotics.

If Patricia had exhibited other symptoms with the pneumonia, I would have prescribed a different remedy. If, for instance, she wept frequently, craved affection and attention, and was thirstless, I would have prescribed pulsatilla rather than bryonia. Like any homeopath, I adjusted the treatment according to the patient's needs. Her story is an example of an acute condition that requires an understanding of the person's nature in order to determine the correct remedy.

Treating the Whole Person: Mind, Body, and Soul--A Chronic Condition

For homeopaths, chronic conditions are similar to acute ones. We must understand the patient in order to find the right remedy. Classical homeopaths are resolved to assist patients to be in harmony with the universe, to reestablish them in a partnership with themselves and with their God. We are vehicles through which God o...

Edition details

• Publisher: Doubleday
• Publication date: 1998
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0385485751
• ISBN 13: 9780385485753
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 304