A collection of essays by neuroscientist, PSYCHOLOGIES expert David Servan-Schreiber has been published. We asked Viktor Kagan to share his impressions of what he read.
“Given me a body – what should I do with it, so single, so mine?” Neuroscientist David Servan-Schreiber has been looking for an answer to the question of Osip Mandelstam, hardly known to him, since 1991 (when a brain tumor was accidentally discovered in him during a scientific experiment) and until passing away in 2011. The book consists of essays, many of which are familiar to readers of Psychologies. She is the result of the meeting of the profession and the fate that tested David. A doctor-patient who fights a disease and helps patients is a hard lesson that not everyone can take from life. Dr. Servan-Schreiber took it and shared it with us. In its most general form, his book is about bridges and connections between different medicines. The doctor’s attentive and interested, but not prejudiced, gaze is turned to what has been developed over thousands of years and can contribute to scientific medicine in maintaining health and overcoming diseases – spiritual practices, herbal medicine, homeopathy, qigong …
The art of healing is much richer than drugs, the author says, and the opinion that official medicine is scientific, and “parallel medicine” is based on nothing, is wrong. Scientific medicine has become like a brilliantly equipped workshop for diagnosing and repairing body malfunctions. It is effective when there are some acute problems. But she has no time to be distracted by conversations with the owner of the body. However, is it not more accurate to compare the body with a plant that needs to be looked after? Doesn’t the body need the love of the soul, just as a child needs the love of its mother? How to talk to him so that he hears and believes? How to listen to him in order to learn about his needs and respond to them? This is what traditional medicine does, which is better to turn to if you want to be healthy or cope with chronic disorders. It works slower, but with good results and fewer side effects.
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- David Servan-Schreiber says goodbye to us
David Servan-Schreiber simply, without unnecessary “scholarship” (with a brilliant knowledge of science) and with live examples, talks about the relationship between the body and the psyche, about the sound of different instruments in the orchestra of life played. These are not teachings, but reflections on how to “learn to trust your body, to rely on it more than current medicine is ready to allow.” What works – chemistry or placebo effect? What can we take from the experience of shamans? How does homeopathy work? What features of our lifestyle make sense to pay attention to? Everything is good that gives the soul and body to help each other worthily live the released life. You can get real pleasure from a book if you do not read diagonally in search of recipes, but enter into a conversation that the author invites you to.
David Servan-Schreiber, French neuroscientist, professor of clinical psychiatry, Psychologies expert, author of several books, including “Anti-cancer” and “Anti-stress” (RIPOL classic, 2010, 2012).