UnBreak Your Health: The Complete Guide to Complementary & Alternative Therapies

Alan E. Smith
Loving Healing Press (2007)
ISBN 9781932690361
Reviewed by Kam Aures for RebeccasReads (1/08)

“UnBreak Your Health: The Complete Guide to Complementary & Alternative Therapies” by Alan E. Smith presents a comprehensive guide useful for when you want to explore other options beyond traditional medicine.  If you are considering complementary or alternative therapies you are not alone!  According to a statistic presented in the introduction, in the year 2002 over half of all Americans turned to trying one of these therapies.  Complementary and alternative therapies are positive on many levels.  They focus on the fact that each person is a “unique individual composed of mind, body and spirit (or life-force energy)” and that each problem should be solved by tailoring the treatment to the specific person.  Instead of focusing on the specific symptoms or issues as traditional medicine oftentimes does, complementary and alternative therapies often look at the body as a whole and work to heal the entire entity to make the body function in a more efficient manner.  They go to the inner source of the problem rather than just treating the topical symptoms.

The author divides the different therapies up into three areas:  the body, the mind and the energy/spirit.  The “body” section presents an overview of such therapies from the familiar like chiropractic care and massage to the lesser known like Emei Qigong and the Nambudripdad Allergy Elimination Technique.  The “mind” chapter focuses on therapies such as Art Therapy, Guided Imagery, Hypnosis, and Traumatic Incident Reduction.  Finally, the “energy/spirit” section focuses on therapies which use human energy to heal such as Acupuncture, Crystal Bowl Therapy, Polarity Therapy and Qi Gong. 

Each therapy examined in the book has a description explaining the origins, beliefs and techniques used in the method.  After most descriptions is a favorite part of mine called “user comments” which aids in understanding how effective these therapies are.  These are comments from actual users of these particular methods.  It is very interesting to see the results that these people have had using the different techniques.  This section makes the book more personable instead of strictly a reference guide.  Websites are listed for most therapies if readers would like to seek out more information or specifics.   

I recommend this thorough guide to complementary and alternative therapies to anyone who is frustrated with conventional medicine’s approach to his health issues or to anyone who just wants to educate himself as to what is out there in terms of non-traditional care.  “UnBreak Your Health: The Complete Guide to Complementary & Alternative Therapies” presents so many different options and techniques, some of which I never knew existed, and the information is presented in a very reader friendly and easy to use way.

Comments

[Health Conscious Reader]

One of the most complete and concise books on the market. Highly recommended.