Heart and Soul: A Psychological and Spiritual Guide to Preventing and Healing Heart Disease

Heart and Soul is the first book by a medical doctor to teach how spirituality, love, joy, understanding, responsibility, and laughter are tenets as essential as medication in battling coronary artery disease. An empathetic and proven healer, Dr. Cortis teaches that, in proper doses, the most powerful elixirs for disease treatment and prevention are self-empowerment, self-responsibility, spirituality, understanding, and communication.
Take Mr. Kurtz, for example - a sixty-one-year-old full-time manual laborer who, after suffering two heart attacks, says, "Why should I quit working? Why should I quit anything? I like my work. I like my wife and family. I like laughter." Or Dr. White, who survived a massive quintuple-bypass operation, returned to work, and has since trekked through the Himalayas. Profound, heart-warming recoveries of this kind fill the pages of Heart and Soul; they are inspirational - and a testament to Dr. Cortis's work.
The consequences of living with anxiety, denial, depression, and anger can be fatal. With its invaluable discussion of symptoms, stress-relieving techniques, tips on how to find the right doctor, and simple quizzes and questionnaires, Heart and Soul is for anyone concerned about his or her health.

Cortis, born and educated in Italy, is now a practicing cardiologist in Chicago. The bright Mediterranean sun had a positive and optimistic effect on his life and views of medicine and people. Those views show in his promotion of the self-development and the spiritual growth of his patients and, more tangibly, in the fact that he founded the Exceptional Heart Patients Program, which emphasizes nine "heartskills" (i.e., practical self-assessment techniques and exercises), healthy living, self-acceptance, and how a patient can help control his healing, health, and outlook. Cortis also stresses the value of a warm, deep relationship between physician and patient. Indeed, if the patient does not feel such an atmosphere, Cortis says, he should go to another doctor. William Beatty

Heart disease is the number one killer in the United States, and Cortis tries to do for heart patients what Bernie Siegel has done for cancer sufferers-that is, give them hope and a sense of control over their affliction. Despite its subtitle, his book does discuss the physical side of heart disease and makes specific recommendations. Some of Cortis's instructions, like taking your own pulse, are relatively easy to follow; but others, such as maintaining the weight you had at 18, will be far more challenging. Cortis, a cardiologist himself, emphasizes the importance of being an "exceptional heart patient"-one who understands the mind-body relationship and is prepared to follow his "Seven Keys to a Healthy Heart," most of which involve lifestyle rather than medicine. However, Cortis's emphasis on the purely inspirational and spiritual almost verges on the mystical at times and takes up too much of the book. For large alternative health collections.
Natalie Kupferberg, Montana State Univ. Lib., Bozeman
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.