Learn to read the Messages from your Body, book review
Messages from the Body (The Body’s Desk Reference) by Michael Lincoln.
https://TalkingHearts.net/products/messages-from-the-body?_pos=1&_psq=messages&_ss=e&_v=1.0
An eBook existed until recently. If preferred, email them to see if still available.
This is Body Symbology done right. It fulfills the promise of original Psychosomatic Medicine (1955–1965).
Students of holistic healing and Energy Medicine will know a large percent of physical problems track back to non-physical mental-emotional causes, to 90%. These can be cleared — if you have patience, expertise and the luxury of time. Working with ‘God is my Partner’ speeds up this process.
He’s still updating it; latest update preferred but not crucial. Messages From the Body is by far his most famous and useful book. Unbelievably Michael has another 20 reference books for diagnostic purposes.
This is a peer-reviewed, professional-grade, encyclopedia of the mental-emotional meaning of pain-disturbance, anywhere in the human body. Really. This is strictly a reference book, not meant to be read thru start to end. It’s explicitly for practitioners and serious self-healers.
Messages from the Body folds in earlier guesses from all literature in:
- body symbolism
- psychosomatic medicine
- therapeutic metaphors for body conditions.
For each disturbed body condition there is a paragraph up to four pages of peer-reviewed “guesses” for the mental-emotional meaning of each ailment.
How to use it? Simply look up what is hurting. Skim the guesses until you find which one(s) “ring your bell” and “hit the nail on the head” for your case.
The 23 book reviews on Amazon are all very high. I dare say, unanimity exists, this is an indispensable classic for professional holistic counselors and Energy Detectives.
As with other famously practical books, no used copies are available.
I suggest you order it directly from Michael: http://www.talkinghearts.net/store/Books/messages-from-the-body
$85 Paper, 694 pages
$39 eBook.
A smaller Top Fifty version released 2012(?) has not been seen by me.
Other similar books
Starting with Louise Hay and the AIDS crisis in the gay community, in Los Angeles, in the 1980s; and, ending around 2010, several holistic practitioners individually took on the task of fulfilling the promise of original psychosomatic medicine (1955–1965).
Ten books now — depending on which you prefer — cross-reference illnesses with mental-emotional issues. Not every book is coherent and peer-reviewed so be careful.
Messages stands head and shoulders above all others and is the primary professional-grade book in this field. The 7–8 best books of this period are reviewed in The Meaning of Illness Is Now an Open Book.
The second best book is Knowing Ourselves, What does the body want to tell us with diseases? (2015) by Joman Romero
Revised review of Messages from Yogi Times
The uniqueness of Michael’s books makes them difficult to review. The following is revised, reorganized and expanded from a capsule review by Mary Thompson in YOGI TIMES from Nov. 2006.
“Michael Lincoln, Ph.D., Director of a drug and recovery counseling clinic in Oregon, gives the reader a rare glimpse into the workings of the sub- and unconscious.
His book “translates” individual physical pains, anywhere in the body, into their mental-emotional meanings. Greater awareness of causative mental-emotional negativity behind physical imbalance, is the purpose of this book. Scientific literature, clinical experience, life learning, inner knowing and other-dimensional sources are all cited as source material for this text.”
Persons able to self-test with any kind of self-testing method, will enjoy being able to narrow down the multiple “translations” of most symptoms and apply them to specific individuals. Although the book is expensive and not widely distributed, holistic practitioners will find it invaluable for assisting clients to understand the underlying causes behind their physical challenges.
This is a “fierce” book in about the best way you can imagine a healing book can be. Broad in scope, deep in intent. Lincoln’s book has a well-deserved blue language caution. He does not mince words and frequently uses street talk and some swear words to make his point as directly as possible. Despite his impolite language neither I nor other reviewers have found fault in his accuracy, even if his language induces cringes from time to time and would be inappropriate in polite conversation with clients.
Lincoln’s directness and precision describing the underlying causes of symptoms is unmatched in other books of this type. Michael is not promoting any vague, nebulous New Age way of looking at the hurts in one’s past. His pointed observations require openness, self-honesty and courage to consider. Then it’s up to you to validate the guesses workable for you; if accurate, to face what’s true and attend to what needs changing.
How Messages from the Body is organized
After introductory material on the meaning of body types; and so on, to assist the reader in getting the most from this text; and, details about the author’s life experience enabling him to write as he has, the book launches into an alphabetical listing of symptoms from “abdominal cramps” to “yellow fever.” Each symptom has one or more accompanying mental-emotional habit pattern connected with the physical symptom, suggesting how it may have come into manifestation.
Lincoln doggedly articulates family-of-origin, family-systems and developmental stage thinking. This added depth is virtually unheard of in books in psychotherapy. His accuracy in terms of family-of-origin, family-systems and developmental stage thinking is startlingly perceptive and accurate as well. The possibility of past life causes is absent.
The alphabetical index present is indispensable for the 700 pages. An additional indexing is needed, by body parts, from the head down.
Cheaper books cross-referencing issues and illnesses
Other books in this field are mostly shorter and less comprehensive. The lay-person’s self-help version is Your Body Speaks Your Mind, 2nd ed, by Deb Shapiro. This is still good enuf to assist your friends with. Deb is more of a researcher where Michael is more of a psychotherapist and mystic.
More on original Psychosomatic Medicine
Original Psychosomatic Medicine (1955–1965) embodied an intention to erect a peer-reviewed knowledge-base for matching physical symptoms with mental-emotional disturbances. This promise was finally fulfilled in a series of reference books all published primarily between 1994–2010.
Why did this impulse die out after 1965? TV advertising happened. The big success of Madison Ave. selling pharmaceuticals (drugs) thru TV and radio ads swung the attention of Big Pharma towards profits, over people. College research into original PM was de-funded. Original PM suffered a similar fate to Homeopathy in the US.
After 1965 original PM was orphaned. Around 1970, Holistic healing, the “new kid on the block” in healthcare, took in both original PM and homeopathy and raised them up. Within holistic health and healing, both these “orphans” thrived and blossomed between 1970s and 1990s.
Psychosomatic Medicine as patient care-aligned
In the early 2000s, younger medical school students began agitating for more training in how to deal with the mental-emotional aspects of patient care. This led to textbooks calling themselves “psychosomatic medicine” yet they were aligned with diagnosing, drugs and surgery treatment. As far as I can tell from Amazon and online research, this version of PM is not aligned at all with holistic health and healing. It exists entirely within conventional medicine, as patient care literature for mental-emotional issues around diagnosing, drugs and surgery.
Comments invited.
