"We are the keepers of an intuitive intelligence so powerful it can tell us how to heal," writes psychiatrist and practicing intuitive Judith Orloff, M.D. "We all possess within us an intuitive healing code that contains the blueprints for our health and happiness, and for the survival of everything that is good here on earth." Her aim is to teach you how to tap into and train your own intuitive powers and use them for your well-being. She divides the book into three parts: "The Body," "Emotions and Relationships," and "Sexual Wellness." She teaches five steps to intuitive healing, which she defines as "listening to your body's signals--your inner voice and heart, your spiritual connection--to find out how to become more physically, emotionally, and sexually whole." According to Orloff, these steps apply to every health challenge, as well as every emotional and sexual issue: Notice your beliefs.
Be in your body.
Sense your body's subtle energy.
Ask for inner guidance.
Listen to your dreams.

Orloff returns to these steps in every chapter, offering more explanation, a different slant, practical exercises, and ways to apply each step to different areas of your life. For example, in the helpful "Sacred Healing Partnerships" chapter, she applies these steps to choosing the right health practitioner. Orloff is articulate and warm, inviting you to make her world your own with clear explanations, practical strategies, and numerous detailed, personal anecdotes. --Joan Price


From Publishers Weekly
While holistic medicine has recently gained wider acceptance and inspired a slew of books, rarely has it been examined so thoughtfully and engagingly. Orloff, a psychiatrist, "practicing intuitive" and author of the memoir Second Sight, approaches her medical practice with unusual insight into human nature. Defining healing much more broadly than the eradication of illness or temporary avoidance of death, Orloff optimistically sees the future of medicine as "a holistic art and science" in which "intuition, spirit and technology will be seamlessly integrated." Revealing more of her personal experiences than many professional authors, she offers a clear, detailed manual for tapping one's intuition, which she variously characterizes as "a potent form of inner wisdom," "a still, small voice inside" and "a truth-teller committed to our well-being." To assist readers in developing and maintaining their physical, emotional and sexual health, Orloff presents five steps: "Notice your beliefs, be in your body, sense your body's subtle energy, ask for guidance and listen to your dreams." Although she repeats this five-step process in every chapter, she manages to maintain a fresh, vital discussion throughout. With her frank treatment of such topics as death and sexuality, Orloff will no doubt win over many new fans. Agent, Richard Pine. 15-city author tour. (Mar.) Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Booklist
Intuitive medicine is flying high, and Orloff is a leader of the flock. She shows intuitive medicine's rapidly expanding band of devotees how to apply five basic procedures to the major facets of life: the body, emotions and relationships, and sexual wellness. The five are "notice your beliefs," "be in your body," "sense your body's subtle energy," "ask for inner guidance," and "listen to your dreams." Running down the five on each topic she touches, Orloff also offers sample intuitions, questions for reflection, and a variety of meditations; she allows that gut feelings and a timely bolt from the blue can be helpful, too. Drawing on positive experiences with her own patients and showing how her methods beat competitors hollow, she represents her patients as filled with relief, goodwill, and the desire to carry the flag of intuitive healing to the unconverted. Counseling on how to find the right practitioner, Orloff stresses the necessities of a comfortable patient-practitioner relationship and, above all, of being "gentle with yourself." William Beatty


Review
"A wonderful contribution to the field of human consciousness. Dr. Orloff's work is not only needed by the social mind in order to understand the future of health care, but it is also a masterpiece of educational data."
-- Caroline Myss, Ph.D., author of Anatomy of the Spirit and Why People Don't Heal and How They Can

"A powerful, step-by-step guide for helping you tune in to your own intuition and power to heal on every level."
-- Christiane Northrup, M.D., author of Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom

"Wise, accessible, compassionate, funny, and authentic, this book can help you listen to the voice of intuition, live a more satisfying and joyful life, and connect with the body's natural powers of healing."
-- Joan Borysenko, Ph.D., author of Minding the Body, Mending the Mind

"An excellent resource for those ready to explore their role in health, wellness, and living."
-- Bernie Siegel, M.D., author of Love, Medicine & Miracles and Prescriptions for Living

"Judith Orloff brings intuition into the healing arts. Her book is a great contribution to our deeper understanding and transformation."
-- Marianne Williamson

"Clear, accessible advice here on how to make this fundamental and life-opening shift from the anxiously controlled life to one that is open to opportunity and creativity."
-- Thomas Moore, author of The Soul of Sex and The Care of the Soul


Review
"A wonderful contribution to the field of human consciousness. Dr. Orloff's work is not only needed by the social mind in order to understand the future of health care, but it is also a masterpiece of educational data."
-- Caroline Myss, Ph.D., author of Anatomy of the Spirit and Why People Don't Heal and How They Can

"A powerful, step-by-step guide for helping you tune in to your own intuition and power to heal on every level."
-- Christiane Northrup, M.D., author of Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom

"Wise, accessible, compassionate, funny, and authentic, this book can help you listen to the voice of intuition, live a more satisfying and joyful life, and connect with the body's natural powers of healing."
-- Joan Borysenko, Ph.D., author of Minding the Body, Mending the Mind

"An excellent resource for those ready to explore their role in health, wellness, and living."
-- Bernie Siegel, M.D., author of Love, Medicine & Miracles and Prescriptions for Living

"Judith Orloff brings intuition into the healing arts. Her book is a great contribution to our deeper understanding and transformation."
-- Marianne Williamson

"Clear, accessible advice here on how to make this fundamental and life-opening shift from the anxiously controlled life to one that is open to opportunity and creativity."
-- Thomas Moore, author of The Soul of Sex and The Care of the Soul


Book Description
"We are the keepers of an intuitive intelligence so powerful it can tell us how to heal." In her groundbreaking new book, Dr. Judith Orloff leads readers to the heart of a radical revolution in health care: the union of medicine and intuition, of body, mind, and soul. We're all born with the gift of intuition; many of us have long ago blocked that "indisputable sense of rightness" which is our truest inner compass.

Dr. Orloff's guide will show you how to recapture, nurture, and affirm your intuitive ability, so that you can utilize it to help heal yourself. Intuition plays an indispensable role in self-diagnosis, pain control, immune response, and recovery from acute and chronic illness; it can lead you to breakthroughs in anxiety, panic, depression, and other emotional blockages, even when traditional psychotherapy has failed. Intuition also offers insights into the use of medications and the selection of the right healer for your needs. Further, it is integral for sexual healing, since sexuality is a potent connector and energy source for clarifying spirituality and improving vitality.

Dr. Orloff introduces five practical steps she uses in her own life and teaches to patients which illustrate how to harness the power of intuition to heal. You'll learn to clarify your beliefs, listen to your body's messages, access inner guidance, sense subtle energy, and interpret your dreams. Practicing these steps you'll recognize early warning signals and act on them to help prevent illness. You'll have skills to uncover important information from meditation and remote viewing (a way of intuitively tuning in) to make sense of confusing signals. The insights you'll gain from these tools will lend reason, compassion, and meaning to events such as illness, loss, or despair. Following Dr. Orloff's simple, clear instructions, illustrated with examples from her own experience and psychiatric practice, you'll recapture a sense of vision that will bring vibrance to all that you do.

"Our intuition can open us up to our spirituality and show us how to be more healthy and whole," writes Dr. Orloff. "If you're in good health, you'll want to know about intuition because it can help you stay well and recognize messages that prevent illness. If you or your loved ones need healing, you'll also want intuition to show the way." Written with abundant warmth, humor, and compassion, this guide is your companion to a healthier, more fulfilling life.





From the Inside Flap
"We are the keepers of an intuitive intelligence so powerful it can tell us how to heal." In her groundbreaking new book, Dr. Judith Orloff leads readers to the heart of a radical revolution in health care: the union of medicine and intuition, of body, mind, and soul. We're all born with the gift of intuition; many of us have long ago blocked that "indisputable sense of rightness" which is our truest inner compass.

Dr. Orloff's guide will show you how to recapture, nurture, and affirm your intuitive ability, so that you can utilize it to help heal yourself. Intuition plays an indispensable role in self-diagnosis, pain control, immune response, and recovery from acute and chronic illness; it can lead you to breakthroughs in anxiety, panic, depression, and other emotional blockages, even when traditional psychotherapy has failed. Intuition also offers insights into the use of medications and the selection of the right healer for your needs. Further, it is integral for sexual healing, since sexuality is a potent connector and energy source for clarifying spirituality and improving vitality.

Dr. Orloff introduces five practical steps she uses in her own life and teaches to patients which illustrate how to harness the power of intuition to heal. You'll learn to clarify your beliefs, listen to your body's messages, access inner guidance, sense subtle energy, and interpret your dreams. Practicing these steps you'll recognize early warning signals and act on them to help prevent illness. You'll have skills to uncover important information from meditation and remote viewing (a way of intuitively tuning in) to make sense of confusing signals. The insights you'll gain from these tools will lend reason, compassion, and meaning to events such as illness, loss, or despair. Following Dr. Orloff's simple, clear instructions, illustrated with examples from her own experience and psychiatric practice, you'll recapture a sense of vision that will bring vibrance to all that you do.

"Our intuition can open us up to our spirituality and show us how to be more healthy and whole," writes Dr. Orloff. "If you're in good health, you'll want to know about intuition because it can help you stay well and recognize messages that prevent illness. If you or your loved ones need healing, you'll also want intuition to show the way." Written with abundant warmth, humor, and compassion, this guide is your companion to a healthier, more fulfilling life.





From the Back Cover
"A wonderful contribution to the field of human consciousness. Dr. Orloff's work is not only needed by the social mind in order to understand the future of health care, but it is also a masterpiece of educational data."
-- Caroline Myss, Ph.D., author of Anatomy of the Spirit and Why People Don't Heal and How They Can

"A powerful, step-by-step guide for helping you tune in to your own intuition and power to heal on every level."
-- Christiane Northrup, M.D., author of Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom

"Wise, accessible, compassionate, funny, and authentic, this book can help you listen to the voice of intuition, live a more satisfying and joyful life, and connect with the body's natural powers of healing."
-- Joan Borysenko, Ph.D., author of Minding the Body, Mending the Mind

"An excellent resource for those ready to explore their role in health, wellness, and living."
-- Bernie Siegel, M.D., author of Love, Medicine & Miracles and Prescriptions for Living

"Judith Orloff brings intuition into the healing arts. Her book is a great contribution to our deeper understanding and transformation."
-- Marianne Williamson

"Clear, accessible advice here on how to make this fundamental and life-opening shift from the anxiously controlled life to one that is open to opportunity and creativity."
-- Thomas Moore, author of The Soul of Sex and The Care of the Soul


About the Author
JUDITH ORLOFF, M.D., is a board-certified psychiatrist, an assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at UCLA, and a staff member at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. She is also the author of Second Sight, a memoir about coming to terms with her intuitive abilities. Dr. Orloff is an international lecturer and workshop leader on the interrelationships of medicine, intuition, and spirituality. Her work has been featured on CNN, PBS, Lifetime, A&E, and NPR and has appeared in New Age, Self, and USA Today. She lives by the ocean in Los Angeles, California.


Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
What Is Intuitive Healing?
A First Look at the Five Steps

The intuitive messages you receive can be life-changing. Please listen. Only good can come. Even so, I know how easy it is to fixate on what you're already pursuing, what you've come to feel is right for you. I have this struggle all the time. I'm asking you simply to allow for other possibilities, as I've learned to do. Reserve judgment. See how your future unfolds. There's often a synchronicity; opportunities may present themselves. If so, go with them. Watch where they take you. Change of this kind always has a component of the unpredictable. It can be mysterious, beguiling. Be prepared to smile.

In this spirit I now want to present your road map for the journey. Here's a first look at the five intuitive steps that can transform your health and life. They provide the structure I'll refer to throughout the book. Each step represents an indicator that can help you avoid illness, replenish energy, and bring insight into any problem. In every chapter I'll take you through each step thoroughly. Utilizing this structure will enhance your intuition, or enable you to find it.

Step 1. Notice Your Beliefs
Your beliefs set the tone for healing. Positive attitudes accentuate growth, negative attitudes impair it. Honesty is required to flush out counter productive perceptions so ingrained you may not realize how pernicious they are. If we examine our beliefs, we won't be subject to subterranean undermining influences. Our beliefs trigger biochemical responses. No organ system stands apart from our thoughts. What you believe -- what you really believe -- programs your neurochemicals. I'm not suggesting that you be Pollyannaish or put on a happy face to please, but that you be absolutely true to yourself. This will liberate you from unconscious impulses that impede your healing.

Step 2. Be in Your Body
Your body is a richly nuanced intuitive receiver. You must be in it completely to heal. This may require some adjustment. We're trained to function from the neck up, denying the rest of our bodies. I want you to reorient yourself, to respect the intellect but delight in your physicality as well. Being aware of the sensuousness of the body can open intuition. This may mean noticing the early signs of pain so you can act on them, trusting your gut about relationships, or awakening your sexuality. We can't afford to ignore such life-informing signals. Being attuned to your body is a treasure.

Step 3. Sense Your Body's Subtle Energy
Tapping into your body's subtle energy can heal. From an intuitive standpoint we are all composed of vibrantly colored energy fields (whose centers are called chakras) that emanate from us. These can be sensed. They contain truths about our physical, emotional, and sexual needs. Energy has different manifestations, from erotic to psychic. Invisible to most people, it can be sensed with intuition. To heal you must first learn to identify energy. Then you can direct it to specific parts of the body. Feeling energy can be very sensual. I assure you, it won't be all work!

Step 4. Ask for Inner Guidance
A range of answers lies within you. To access them I'll focus on two intuitive techniques: meditation and remote viewing. Meditation is a state of quiet that amplifies the intuition. It is the foundation of my spiritual practice. In practical terms meditation lowers blood pressure, relieves stress, can help reverse heart disease, even retard aging.

The method I'll show you is to focus consciously on your breath, to contact a soundless inner pulse. This is your intuitive core. Your breath will take you there. Once you're accustomed to the quiet, you can use remote viewing, an intuitive technique to move through both time and space. It enables you to tune in to the past, present, and future, or to visualize a person, place, or situation, even at a great distance. With this knowledge you can help diagnose illness by picturing the body's organs, predict proper treatment, appraise current therapies -- all mandatory when conventional medicine seems unable to find a cure. Remote viewing also reveals emotional and sexual blocks; it can even let you check someone out before you get involved. All this is possible: College students have been taught basic remote viewing in a few sessions.

Step 5. Listen to Your Dreams
Intuition is the language of dreams. We speak it every night, during the REM state, the phase of sleep when our brain waves impart secret healing formulas. This mystic symbology -- images, messages, scenarios -- has rules different from those in our waking life. A dream's tone can be as restorative as its content; the nonverbal often presides. Also, in dreams revelations about illness and relationships are conveyed. Dreams do heal, but first you must retrieve them. During sleep we experience a kind of amnesia. To the intellect dreams are alien, language that does not compute. Dreams cannot be captured by the rational mind alone; intuitive memory is needed. As you learn how to remember and interpret dreams, you'll be able to draw on this form of healing.

YOU CAN APPLY these five intuitive steps to every health challenge in your life, as well as every emotional or sexual issue. I live them everyday -- in my medical practice, my relationships, dating, choices about health or new directions. As you read on you'll see how the steps pertain. They are yielding, expansive, reflecting possibilities. Try not to cling to any one too tightly; simply allow them to illuminate. You maybe more compelled by one step than another. For example, since childhood I've been a prolific dreamer -- every night dreams articulate my inner truth like nothing else can. Find the most natural outlet for your intuition. Have fun. Give yourself permission to explore.

FROM OUR EDITORS

Patient, Heal Thyself

Dr. Judith Orloff, a psychiatrist and self-proclaimed practicing intuitive, has a vision for the future of health care: a holistic approach that melds technology and hard science with the sixth sense we call intuition. And now Orloff takes the first step toward making her vision a reality with Dr. Judith Orloff's Guide to Intuitive Healing: 5 Steps to Physical, Emotional, and Sexual Wellness. By providing a step-by-step guide for tapping into the metaphysical powers she insists we all possess, Orloff hopes to guide us into harnessing that power so as to enhance our health, welfare, and sexuality.

Nontraditional forms of health care are not new. Therapies such as homeopathy, herbology, acupressure, and acupuncture have been practiced alongside scientific medicine for centuries. The belief that spirituality can affect health and healing has existed for eons, but a recent remarkable study showed that patients who were prayed for exhibited better recovery abilities than those who were not. Orloff's program is less about external forces, such as drugs, prayers, and treatments, than it is about internal forces -- building a stronger link between our minds and our bodies. Orloff believes we are the keepers of our own health and that each of us possesses an innate intuitive intelligence that has the power to heal. She describes this sixth sense as a code composed of emotions, sensations, and metaphorical images -- the same sense that we experience when we have a "gut" reaction or feel a strong pull to do something.

To help readers understand and harness this intuitive ability, Orloff provides a framework of five steps. She examines each of these steps in detail as she reviews three basic areas of health and wellness: the body, emotions, and sexuality. She touts developing and nurturing intuition so that we become better tuned to the messages our minds and bodies send out. Such intuition enables us to detect the earliest signs of physical and mental disease by noting changes -- even subtle ones -- in our energy, emotions, or bodily aches and pains. It also provides a mechanism for healing, soothing, and stabilizing.

Orloff's first step toward intuitive healing is an attitude adjustment: noticing your beliefs about health, disease, and stress, and changing those that may be harmful. For instance, illness can be used a means of getting what we want or need -- rest, love, or attention. Recognizing this behavior allows us to seek other, healthier ways of meeting these needs. Orloff's second step involves various exercises and activities designed to help you get to know your body better. Not only is Orloff a proponent of the benefits of such therapies as massage and meditation, but she also encourages the study of basic anatomy and physiology using a textbook like Gray's Anatomy or a 3-D software program for the human body. This enables us to visualize certain parts of our bodies and better understand their functions, an important aspect to the imagery exercises Orloff suggests.

The third step in Orloff's framework involves sensing your body's subtle energy. For this she focuses on the seven chakras, identifying these bodily "hotspots" and learning to "read" them. The fourth step involves asking for inner guidance, a process that Orloff likens to having a guardian angel, a higher power, or a spiritual figure that can be "consulted" whenever answers are needed or decisions need to be made. Answers and decisions can also be found by exercising the final step -- listening to your dreams. Orloff is a big advocate of dream therapy and cites several examples of patients who found solutions to their problems through dreaming.

Orloff's advice is very metaphysical in nature, but it has an underlying bedrock of psychiatry. The breathing and imagery exercises, meditations, and biofeedback techniques she presents are not new, but the intuitive insights she espouses will likely seem a bit foreign to many. Anticipating that, Orloff explains things in detail and provides exercises designed to hone the sensitivities she advocates. She goes through the five steps in each chapter and for each subject, detailing the ways each step can be implemented. Rather than scorning or discounting traditional medicine, Orloff embraces it and recognizes its importance. She sees intuitive healing as an enhancement of traditional medicine and suggests techniques that can be used to do everything from picking out a health-care provider to minimizing the amount of medication you take.

While much of Orloff's focus is on health and wellness, she also looks at ways to deal with illness, minimize pain, and face (and even visualize!) death. Not only are her exercises designed to help you better tune into your own body and psyche, but she also discusses ways of intuitively reading others. While Orloff claims paranormal abilities that allow her to obtain more extensive "readings" than those most people are capable of, the anecdotal evidence she provides of others' experiences demonstrates how often our inner voices speak to us. With Orloff's help, we may become smart enough to listen.

—Beth Amos

ANNOTATION

"...introduces five practical steps for harnessing the healing power of intuition...learn how to clarify beliefs, listen to the body's messages, access inner guidance, sense subtle energy, and interpret dreams, all for better health."

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Dr. Orloff's guide will show you how to recapture, nurture, and affirm your intuitive ability, so that you can utilize it to help heal yourself. Intuition plays an indispensable role in self-diagnosis, pain control, immune response, and recovery from acute and chronic illness; it can lead you to breakthroughs in anxiety, panic, depression, and other emotional blockages, even when traditional psychotherapy has failed. Intuition also offers insights into the use of medications and the selection of the right healer for your needs. Further, it is integral for sexual healing, since sexuality is a potent connector and energy source for clarifying spirituality and improving vitality.

FROM THE CRITICS

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