You Are What You Say: The Proven Program that Uses the Power of Language to Combat Stress, Anger, and Depression - Softcover

Budd M.D., Matthew; Rothstein, Larry; Adams MD, Patch

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0812929624 ISBN 13: 9780812929621

Verlag: Harmony/Rodale/Convergent, 2001

Inhaltsangabe

"Why are you sick?" This question, posed in compassion by his grandmother Minnie after a childhood incident plunged him into illness, stayed with Dr. Matthew Budd throughout his lifetime in medicine. As a teacher and physician at Harvard for more than thirty years, he repeatedly asked his patients this question. He found, remarkably, that it often unlocked memories, secrets, anger, resentments, and fears that had played crucial roles in their illnesses.

As he encouraged his patients to reflect on their lives and habitual behavior, they often shifted from being trapped in suffering to designing a life of wellness and profound personal change for themselves, no matter what their circumstances. Their experiences led Dr. Budd to develop the Ways to Wellness program, a nationally acclaimed workshop offered by numerous HMOs.

In You Are What You Say, Dr. Budd presents the principles of this powerful, scientifically validated program that weaves ancient and modern insights into human behavior, neurophysiology, language, and spirituality. One of these fundamental principles is that you are what you say -- your words play a major role in determining, not just reflecting, your health and well-being. He explains how the body "learns" many of its reactions, consciously and unconsciously, through language.

By following the principles in this book, you'll learn about the Ten Linguistic Viruses that damage health and how to combat the ravages of anger, perfectionism, depression, and anxiety by changing the script of what you say to yourself and to others.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Matthew Budd, M.D., for twenty years assistant professor at Harvard Medical School, was the architect for the first Behavioral Medicine department at the Harvard Community Health Plan and the developer of the revolutionary Ways to Wellness program, which is now marketed nationally as the Personal Health Improvement Program. His work has been featured on National Public Radio, in The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times, and in numerous articles in the medical literature. He lives in Boston with his wife, Rosalind, and his dogs, Otto and Zeke.

Larry Rothstein, Ed.D., is a leading collaborator on self-help books, including Joan Borysenko's Minding the Body, Mending the Mind. He lives in Boston.

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Chapter 1

My Black Bag Is Half Empty

One spring morning nearly twenty years ago, as I sat in a hotel meeting room with two hundred other participants attending a weekend-long workshop on "personal transformation," I thought I had made one of the biggest mistakes of my life. Yet within a few minutes, I saw something that threatened the scientific underpinnings of everything I understood as a doctor.

Here's what happened. For nearly ten minutes, Irving, the session trainer, had been barking out what he called "the ground rules." A short, stocky man with a balding head and a thunderous voice, Irving had been rattling off a list of things participants were not allowed to do during the training-no eating or drinking in the room, no bathroom breaks except every two hours, no talking to other people in the seminar, and so on.

As Irving droned-or I should say roared-on, all I could think about was that my weekend was ruined. I had questioned the wisdom of my attending this "course" even before I had arrived. After all, I was a Harvard Medical School professor, an internist at one of the country's leading HMOs, and, at the very least, a rational person. So why was I sitting here prepared to listen to ideas that my colleagues at Harvard would and did dismiss with derisive laughter?

The answer was simple-I was in despair. I believed I was an ineffective doctor, unable to help the majority of my patients with their everyday health problems, which were, to my then na?ve understanding, largely stress-related or "psychosomatic." Whatever I did for or to them, e.g., mood pills or pain relievers, changed little in their lives. I had become so upset about my inability to help these many patients that I was even considering becoming a surgeon, a doctor who "really helped" people.

I had almost reached this decision when I had lunch with my old friend, a hospital administrator named Shu-Shu. I was complaining to her about my unhappiness when she looked up from her Caesar salad and said, "Why don't you take the training course called est that I've just completed. I think it'll help." I had heard some stories about this training and had an arrogant negative opinion of it. It was reputed to be authoritarian, confrontational, the invention of an encyclopedia salesman. I thought, "How could Shu-Shu be taken in by such a charlatan?"

I replied, "I don't need advice from a bunch of whackos. How can this help me?"

"Trust me," Shu-Shu said, as she waved her salad fork at me. "You'll see, it's really good." I was conflicted. Over the years I'd known her, I had come to admire and respect her deeply. She was a solid, effective person. It was a measure of my desperation that I decided to trust her and to sign up for the weekend course.

My initial instincts seemed correct as Irving continued on with his list of don'ts. I checked my watch-8:10 a.m. The day had just begun, and already it seemed interminable. Irving read the next ground rule, which was "No watches or timepieces." I scowled as I surrendered my watch, placing it into a large box with dozens of others.

I reminded myself never to listen to even good friends' advice. But within minutes, Shu-Shu's promise to me came true.

I noticed a woman seated across the aisle from me. She was coughing uncontrollably. I caught sight of her name tag, which read "Barbara." She was an attractive woman in her late twenties. She wore blue jeans, a white T-shirt, and the platform shoes so popular in that era. Her long, red hair fell lazily halfway down her back.

Suddenly, Barbara's coughing increased in intensity. She began wheezing. I realized that she was having an asthma attack. Asthma is a condition in which the air passages go into spasm and a person's breathing becomes difficult. An asthma attack can be really serious, even fatal. Barbara's breathing now sounded like air whistling out of a balloon with a pinhole in it.

I started out of my seat to see if I could help her. My mind was racing through possible causes for the attack: "Maybe she ate something for breakfast that she was allergic to, or maybe it's the paint or rugs in this hall, or maybe there's a fungus in the air-conditioning system."

But before I could get to Barbara, she jumped out of her seat to challenge one of Irving's ground rules-the one that insisted that participants raise their hand and wait to be called on before speaking. She was barely able to utter her protest-"Don't tell me what to do"-before she was racked by another coughing fit. Irving started walking toward Barbara. At the same time, as I reached her side, I shouted out, "This woman is having an asthma attack." Irving waved me away. He stopped right in front of Barbara and said, "Did you hear the ground rules? No talking until you're called on! I didn't call on you."

Another spasm of coughing ripped through Barbara's body. She doubled up in pain. Irving crouched down until he was two feet from her face. He stared directly into her eyes and said firmly but compassionately, "Look at me, I am not your father!" When I heard this, I was sure that he was crazy.

Barbara grew angrier at these words. Her breathing became even more labored. My anger rose also and I was about to demand that Irving back off so I could attend to Barbara when he said, "Barbara, look at my right ear." The odd nature of Irving's request focused Barbara for a moment. She stared at Irving's right ear. Irving held his gaze on Barbara as he asked, "It's not your father's ear, is it?" She wheezed, "No, of course not." Then Irving repeated his question for his nose, eyes, mouth, and head. Each time, Barbara responded with an irritated no.

Then Irving said, "I'm not your father, am I? So why are you so angry? Just raise your hand and wait to be called on before you speak," he said softly and compassionately.

I couldn't believe what I saw over the next few minutes. Barbara began to cry, a whole body cry, not a polite sob. Looking up from her sadness, she said, "No, you're not my father, but it feels that way." Even as she made this remark, her wheezing lessened and her body visibly relaxed. After a couple of minutes, she was breathing normally and sobbing bitterly.

Now it was me who was gasping. I had seen something that completely upset my worldview. I believed that asthma is a disease caused by the body's response to a substance to which it is allergic. Every first-year medical student knows this. If someone had described what had happened to Barbara, I would have been amused and very skeptical. But I didn't hear or read about it, I had seen it with my own eyes. Her attack had cleared up without the aid of inhaled or intravenous medications, the usual treatments for asthma. Irving's questions and Barbara's responses had done the trick. This was incomprehensible to me given everything that I had learned and understood as a doctor about disease, allergy, and treatment.

In fact, as Barbara proclaimed that Irving was not her father and began to cry, I watched her whole body change. The tension and fear left her face, her shoulders lowered from their tightened position, and her breath came more easily.

My brain was spinning with questions. What had happened? What had I been missing as I tried to help my patients? What did Irving know that I didn't? What has modern medicine been missing? How could Irving's words change Barbara's body?

As I sat there in a confused state in the hotel meeting room, I noticed that my despair about medical practice was lifting. I had a whole new set of questions that would stay with me continually during the years that followed. It was clear to me at that moment that engaging these questions...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Harmony/Rodale/Convergent
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2001
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0812929624
• ISBN 13: 9780812929621
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 272
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar