Why do physicians who've taken the Hippocratic Oath willingly cut into seemingly healthy patients? How do you measure the success of surgery aimed at making someone happier by altering his or her body? Sander L. Gilman explores such questions in Creating Beauty to Cure the Soul, a cultural history of the connections between beauty of body and happiness of mind. Following these themes through an impressive range of historical moments and players, Gilman traces how aesthetic alterations of the body have been used to "cure" dissatisfied states of mind. In his exploration of the striking parallels between the development of cosmetic surgery and the field of psychiatry, Gilman entertains an array of philosophical and psychological questions that underlie the more practical decisions rountinely made by doctors and potential patients considering these types of surgery. While surveying and incorporating the relevant theories of Sigmund Freud, Alfred Adler, Karl Menninger, Paul Schilder, contemporary feminist critics, and others, Gilman considers the highly unstable nature of cultural notions of health, happiness, and beauty. He reveals how ideas of race and gender structured early understandings of aesthetic surgery in discussions of both the "abnormality" of the Jewish nose and the historical requirement that healthy and virtuous females look "normal," thereby enabling them to achieve invisibility. Reflecting upon historically widespread prejudices, Gilman describes the persecutions, harrassment, attacks, and even murders that continue to result from bodily difference and he encourages readers to question the cultural assumptions that underlie the increasing acceptability of this surgical form of psychotherapy. Synthesizing a vast body of related literature and containing a comprehensive bibliography, Creating Beauty to Cure the Soul will appeal to a broad audience, including those interested in the histories of medicine and psychiatry, and in philosophy, cultural studies, Jewish cultural studies, and race and ethnicity.

The bestselling author of The Power of Kindness shows how the ability to appreciate beauty-far from being a luxury or an afterthought-is vital to leading a happy, balanced, and satisfying life. Beauty is all around us-in a flower, a song, the sound of falling water, or a dramatic painting. We often think of it as just "window dressing." But it's not. It is the balm of our existence, and we cannot live full and satisfying lives without it. Transpersonal psychologist Piero Ferrucci helps us to see everyday beauty in a whole new way-and to understand its powers to guide us through periods of darkness or stress, to speed recovery, to make life feel purposeful. He uses stories, case studies, clinical histories, and anecdotes to explain how different kinds of beauty complement and complete our lives in different ways. So much of the malaise and low-grade depression we may find in our lives and those of people we love is due to our inability to understand the extraordinary power-and necessity-of taking time to "smell the flowers." Ferrucci shows how we can place ourselves in closer proximity to the therapeutic healing that only beauty can bring.

Stressing the important role of vision in the development of identity formation and self-esteem, she discusses such issues as mirroring, the gaze, the gleam in the eye, feeling invisible or falsely mirrored, and the learning early on to attach positive and negative values to one's appearance as they become manifest in the therapeutic relationship. These patients use the therapist as a spectator whose focus on their bodies helps supplement insufficient cathexis and repair feelings of deficit. Amply illustrated with clinical vignettes, Dr.

Edward Clarke warned in his widely read Sex in Education (1873), "but she could not do all this and retain uninjured health, and a future secure from neuralgia, uterine disease, hysteria, and other derangements of the nervous system." For half a century, ideas such as Dr. Clarke's framed the debate over a woman's place in higher education almost exclusively in terms of her body and her health.".

Your Most Valuable Possession Your soul, simply put, is your mind to think, your heart to feel, and your will to decide. It's the very deepest part of your humanity, the source of all treasure and talent. Refreshingly honest and keenly insightful, pastor and talk show host Gregory Dickow shows how your mindset is the single most powerful force in shaping your emotions, your decisions--and your destiny. When you discover the power of God's healing love, then fear, anxiety, anger and shame will stop sabotaging your happiness--and your life. Your best days are going to be your next days. Turn your pain into purpose and let God continue your winning story.

- What does healing mean for Christians and others in an age of science? - How can a person relate scientific findings about one's body, philosophical understanding of one's mind, and theological investigations about one's spirit into a coherent and unified model of the person capable of leading one deeper into one's soul? - How does God ...