ON LEARNING TO HEAL

In this memoir, a man with Crohn’s disease reflects on a lifetime spent attenuating symptoms using a combination of modern medicine and an intuitive, holistic healing approach.

When Cohen, a gender and sexuality studies professor at Rutgers University, was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease at the age of 13, he feared it would compromise him medically (and psychologically) forever. The author recalls being somberly advised that a lifetime of immunosuppressive medication and “periods of remission” were the best scenarios modern medicine could offer. In his early 20s as a graduate student in the San Francisco Bay Area in 1982, Cohen witnessed the beginning of the AIDS epidemic. Since he was a young, gay man, a life-threatening intestinal attack was initially (and wrongly) perceived as an HIV infection. From that grueling Crohn’s episode came a radical, “miraculous,” “out-of-body” epiphany and a newfound appreciation for learning the art of self-healing. With an appealing mixture of intellectual prose, spirited perspective, and refreshing honesty, Cohen shares how, over a four-decade timeline, he nurtured a desire and a respect for the healing process and how nature (specifically trees) aided him on his wellness journey. He argues that the “Western understandings of therapeutic action” have steered modern medicine toward a quick, biochemical, “fix it” modality, discouraging patients from fostering their own abilities to learn to heal. This discussion as well as a deep dive into daily life with Crohn’s disease will find wide appeal with readers who consider modern medical care frustrating. Denser, divergent, referential deliberations on the history of medicine and clinical practice as well as ambiguous philosophies on the nature of illness will appeal more to academics. In A Body Worth Defending (2009), Cohen explored biological immunity, biopolitics, and “the apotheosis of the modern body.” In this book, he shifts his gaze toward how people can tap into their own intrinsic capacities to heal in conjunction with skilled clinical care and curative technologies. He stresses that self-healing needs to be encouraged at every level of health care delivery and promoted as another weapon in the biological arsenal against chronic illness. Cohen persuasively champions the benefits of therapeutic, reparative healing and the vital roles it plays in overall wellness.  

An optimistic, ruminative appreciation for the art, the power, and the cultivation of human healing.