Finding the Way Home: A Compassionate Approach to Illness

Heiss, Gayle

ISBN 10: 0936609354 / ISBN 13: 9780936609355

Published by QED Press, 1997

About this Item

Hardcover in near-pristine condition, with glossy VG+ dust jacket (slight handling). Inscribed to the first owner by the author. 288 unmarked pages. [1.4 lbs].

Seller Inventory # 27540

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Finding the Way Home: A Compassionate Approach to Illness
• Publisher: QED Press
• Publication Date: 1997
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0936609354
• ISBN 13: 9780936609355
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: Very Good
• Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good
• Signed: Signed by Author(s)
• Book Type: Book
• Seller catalogs:
  • Medicine
  • Self-help

About this title

Synopsis

"Finding the Way Home" offers a way--through Gayle Heiss's own experience of chronic illness--to understand and even to realize 'wholeness.' Her illness prompted her to seek out others, to hear their stories, to tell them her own, and to tell all these stories, with their implications and conclusions, to us. Heiss is direct, conversational, and immediate in her style. She writes compellingly, and emphasizes interdependence as the antidote to the illness of our time. For her, it comes down to people helping each other. To those in the healing profession, to those who suffer from an illness that has changed their lives, to hospice volunteers, to those in the ministry, to those who regularly visit the ill and elderly, to those with aging parents, to everyone--since we are all "human, vulnerable, and mortal," this book is helpful, and it may even be healing.

About the Author

Heiss speaks from her own experience of 12 years duration with Sjogren's syndrome, an autoimmune connective-tissue disease that causes inflammation of muscles and joints. During the last eight years, she has been facilitating support groups for those living with illness. Rather than chronicling illness, she seeks to clarify the subtle healing process that can take place in a supportive environment. In the book's three sections--"Living the Question: Illness and Uncertainty," "On Individual Terms: Responses to Illness," and "In Good Company: Illness and Relationships"--she examines personal vulnerability to the fact of physical limitations; acknowledging and grieving over loss; the maze of the medical care system and its alternatives; and the healing qualities of support by friends, family, and others suffering illness.