"Sitting around the table telling stories is not just a way of passing time," writes Rachel Naomi Remen in her introduction to Kitchen Table Wisdom. "It is the way wisdom gets passed along. The stuff that helps us live a life worth remembering." Remen, a physician, therapist, professor of medicine, and long-term survivor of chronic illness, is also a down-home storyteller. Reading this collection of real-life parables feels like a late-night kitchen session with a best friend, munching on leftovers while listening to the good-as-gossip stories of everyday heroes and archetype villains. Every story guides us like a life compass, showing us what's good and lasting about ourselves as well as humanity.


From Publishers Weekly
Remen is one of a growing number of physicians exploring the spiritual dimension of the healing arts. "Coherent, elegant, mysterious, aesthetic," she writes. "When I first earned my degree in medicine I would not have described life in this way. But I was not on intimate terms with life then." Now Remen is awed by the vitality of the life force, which she witnesses through her work counseling cancer patients and their doctors at Commonweal, a cancer-help center in California, and through her keen eye for the depths of ordinary people. Remen tells of those who, having fallen ill, discovered previously untapped wells of fortitude and who, ironically, gained a peace of mind they had never known when well. She often turns common wisdom on its head. Discussing the meaning of suffering, she cites one woman who mourned the loss of her chest pains after corrective surgery. These pains had come whenever she had compromised her integrity; now her "inner advisor" was gone. Some of the most poignant stories here are of doctors whose professional code rejects overt displays of emotion. Both patients and doctors can come to care profoundly for one another, Remen believes. A heartfelt call for change as well as a display of compassionate and courageous thinking, this meditation will speak especially to those whose lives have been touched by illness. BOMC and One Spirit alternate selections; first serial rights to Family Circle and New Age Journal. Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
Speaking as a counselor of 20 years for the chronically and critically ill patient, Remen (Univ. of California at San Francisco Medical Sch.) uses a classic metaphor for human communication, "across the kitchen table," to unfold life-affirming stories from her practice and her own personal experiences with Chron's disease. She writes inspirationally about a new vision of healing and living that incorporates the value of the soul. More than a manual on holistic medicine, this collection of case studies takes readers from the beginning of the "life force" through the judgment traps of modern life into an open-hearted mystery of embracing life at a friend's table. Acknowledging the individual's healing abilities in her advocacy of alternative therapies, Remen points out that healing occurs on many levels. Refreshingly, her instruction is based on a broader view of medicine that replaces disconnection with celebration of the joy of being a fully healed human.?Rebecca Cress-Ingebo, Fordham Health Sciences Lib., Wright State Univ., Dayton, OhioCopyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From AudioFile
Remen is active in the mind-body health movement. She offers a view of medicine that doesn't contradict tradition but asks for consideration of the many factors involved in health. Remen's presentation is matter of fact, simple, unadorned. But as she speaks about healing, her family, health and personal beliefs, her magic becomes apparent. She doesn't draw conclusions but relates anecdotes, allowing listeners to find their own way. Kitchen Table Wisdom is aptly titled if your kitchen happens to include a physician with great insight into human nature. E.L.C. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine


From Booklist
Many people will know Remen, an M.D. who specializes in psycho-oncology, from the PBS series Healing and the Mind. Here Remen focuses on the healing power of stories, drawing evidence both from the experiences of her patients and from her own battle with the effects of Crohn's disease, a life-threatening gastrointestinal disorder. This is a book about possibilities, how terror can be faced, how lessons can be learned, how healing is always possible, if not physically then emotionally. Each story is only a few pages long, but in them, readers meet a variety of people, including Remen's own family, who come up against the most difficult medical circumstances and still manage to find the mystery and hope in life, even at its last moments. By telling these stories and encouraging readers to share their own, Remen wants people to see the interconnectedness of human beings and the resilience of the human condition. She does a wonderful job of it. A Book-of-the-Month Club selection. Ilene Cooper


From Kirkus Reviews
A collection of personal anecdotes, case histories, and reflections notable for their Zen-like quality of absolute acceptance. Remen (Univ. of Calif., San Francisco, Medical School; The Human Patient, 1980) was once a pediatrician and is now a ``psycho-oncologist,'' counseling people with cancer. Her success in that field probably lies in her skills as a listener and her conviction that the stories friends, relatives, and patients tell about their lives are ``the way wisdom gets passed along.'' When she was a child, those stories were (and still are) often told around kitchen tables, hence the title. The stories that she retells here are drawn from her own life as a medical student and a practicing physician, and from the lives and dreams of her patients. Organized into chapters that celebrate spiritual and emotional breakthroughs, the tales are funny, moving, enlightening, and often based on seemingly inconsequential moments. For instance, Remen uses the sight of blades of grass growing through a concrete sidewalk to demonstrate that, despite natural disaster and human clumsiness, ``life is not fragile.'' Other lessons are taught by a young gang member, an air traffic controller, and the people of Fiji, as well as by Remen's grandfather. She also borrows insights from Zen teachings and from Buddhism, matching them with anecdotes from her own childhood; one of the ideas that emerges from this blend is that life is like a jigsaw puzzle, with lessons to be learned from each dark and light fragment. The simplicity and immediacy of the insights take the curse off an inclination to New Age speak. Part of Remen's work is to help sick people die, but this modest volume, very like a series of meditations, will inspire healthy lives as well. (First serial to Ladies Home Journal, Family Circle, and New Age Journal; Book-of-the-Month Club alternate selection) -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.


Book Description
Enthusiastically praised by everyone from Bernie Siegel to Daniel Goleman to Larry Dossey, Rachel Remen has a unique perspective on healing rooted in her background as a physician, a professor of medicine, a therapist, and a long-term survivor of chronic illness. A deeply moving and down-to-earth collection of true stories, this prominent physician shows us life in all its power and mystery and reminds us that the things we cannot measure may be the things that ultimately sustain and enrich our lives. Kitchen Table Wisdom addresses spiritual issues-suffering, meaning, love, faith, courage, and miracles-in the language and authority of our own life experience.

Foreword by Dean Ornish, M.D.

"This is a beautiful book about life, the only true teacher."-Bernie Siegel, M.D.

"Rachel Naomi Remen is nature's gift to us, a genius of that elusive and crucial capacity, the human heart. She has much to teach us about healing, loving, and living."-Daniel Goleman, Ph.D., author of Emotional Intelligence

"A great healer and a living saint."-Larry Dossey, M.D.

"Heartfelt...compassionate and courageous."-Publishers Weekly

"I recommend this book highly to everyone."-Deepak Chopra, M.D.


About the Author
Rachel Naomi Remen, M.D. is a pioneer in training physicians in relationship-centered care and has been in the private practice of psycho-oncology for the past 20 years. A former faculty member at the Stanford School of Medicine, she is also cofounder and medical director of the Commonweal Cancer Help Program in Bolinas, California, which was featured on Bill Moyers's PBS special "Healing and the Mind." She is currently the clinical professor of family and community medicine at the University of California at San Francisco.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

'Everybody is a story,' writes Dr. Remen in her introduction. 'When I was a child, people sat around kitchen tables and told their stories. We don't do that so much anymore. Sitting around the table telling stories is not just a way of passing time. It is the way the wisdom gets passed along. The stuff that helps us to live a life worth remembering. Despite the awesome powers of technology many of us still do not live very well. We may need to listen to one another's stories again.' Loneliness is the hidden wound of our time, the price many have paid for embracing such frontier values as independence, self-reliance, and competence. Rachel Remen invites us to see below the surface and remember that we are connected and can become one another's healers. Dr. Remen's unique and intimate relationship with healing and the life force comes from her experience as a physician, a professor of medicine, a therapist, and a long-term survivor of chronic illness. Her stories, picked from the tree of life, are dedicated to the ordinary hero in all of us and stand witness to life's natural tendency to heal our wounds. In these remarkable parables, we discover that our goal in life might not be a precise destination, but the ability to travel together with humor and meaning, with purpose and quality companionship, with warmth and tenderness. "Kitchen Table Wisdom" shows us that a good story is like a compass for life's journey, and reminds us of the power and joy of being fully human.

FROM THE CRITICS

Larry Dossey, M.D.

A great healer and a living saint.

Bernie Siegel, M.D.

This is a beautiful book about life, the only true teacher.

Daniel Goleman, Ph.D.

Rachel Naomi Remen is nature's gift to us, a genius of that elusive and crucial capacity, the human heart. She has much to teach us about healing, loving, and living.

— author of Emotional Intelligence

Dean Ornish, M.D.

Enthusiastically praised by everyone from Bernie Siegel to Daniel Goleman to Larry Dossey, Rachel Remen has a unique perspective on healing rooted in her background as a physician, a professor of medicine, a therapist, and a long-term survivor of chronic illness. A deeply moving and down-to-earth collection of true stories, this prominent physician shows us life in all its power and mystery and reminds us that the things we cannot measure may be the things that ultimately sustain and enrich our lives. Kitchen Table Wisdom addresses spiritual issues-suffering, meaning, love, faith, courage, and miracles-in the language and authority of our own life experience.

Deepak Chopra, M.D.